Herbert A Simon, the noted Economist, gave a talk at Carnegie Mellon University in 1992 which was titled “The Cat that Curiosity Couldn’t Kill.” It is a rather interesting (and slightly humorous) read into how and why scientists study things. He said that curiosity is not just the beginning of all science, it is also …
Why are we curious? And how can we be more curious? Read More »
One of the popular methods of learning a new subject is what is known as the Feynman Technique. Numerous books and blogs talk about the method. It is said that Richard Feynman, The Nobel Prize winning Physicist only considered to have learned something if he could give an introductory lecture on it.(P85, How to Take …
To learn better you must teach: Importance of Articulation in learning Read More »
Educationists often talk about the question of curriculum. It is common to hear teachers lament the constant pressure to cover the syllabus. This is rather unfortunate, because the goal of education shouldn’t be to cover a lot of things, but rather to uncover the few important things. How then do we decide what are the …
A few months ago I was gripped by an almost existential question – why do we teach poetry. I call this existential because as an English teacher (in-training), teaching poetry was a large part of what I had chosen to do for the rest of my life. And yet, try as I might, I found …
Hitler, Churchill, Kardashian, and why we study poetry Read More »
I recently started reading the book, “Flow and the Psychology of Creativity” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. One of the lines I found really interesting was this: It is easier to enhance creativity by changing conditions in the environment than by trying to make people think more creatively. This comes in the context of constantly coming across …
I’m sure all of us know that feeling of sitting down to do your assignment and half an hour later the page has one word: “Introduction” Writing lengthy essays for College is not easy. This is especially true if you are a student of the Social Sciences (I don’t really know how Engineering or Medical …
Why you need to take notes as a student of the Social Sciences Read More »
Hunter S Thompson is said to have typed out entire pages of the novel, “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald. Thompson did this to get a feel of writing a really great novel. This was a method of learning for him. We often tend to think of copying as an evil that is part of …
Anyone who has known me for a relatively long time knows that I do not have a great track record when it comes to finishing work on time. However, recently for the first time I submitted most of my assignments on time. One of the strategies that helped me do this was to break up …
For the first time I submitted (most of) my assignments on time Read More »
Imagine driving a Ferrari and not knowing where to go! And yet, when it comes to education through technology, this is what most of us do. We need to focus on the process, not the tool.