Praise for Future Wise Rarely does a book come along that can change the way we view the world. This is a must-read book, not just for educators, but for anyone who cares about education or, indeed, lifelong learning. David Perkins does not tell the reader what should be learned in schools—he takes the reader on a journey to clarify his or her own goals and priorities for “lifeworthy learning,” a truly enlightening journey. —Charles M. Reigeluth, professor emeritus, School of Education, Indiana University We are working so hard in this country on the details of school improve- ment that we don’t always stop to consider the big picture—if we are actually working on the right things. David Perkins has long helped us address the essential question of how do we know what students under- stand. In this important book he gives us a fresh vision of curriculum: how do we know what is worth teaching and learning? —Ron Berger, chief academic officer, Expeditionary Learning This book prescribes a wise future for schools by David Perkins, the author of Smart Schools and Outsmarting IQ , continuing his tradition of insightful, visionary, and original analyses of the present and the forth-coming future for education. Educators, policy makers, researchers: you cannot afford missing this book. —Gavriel Salomon, professor emeritus, University of Haifa, Israel Future Wise E D U C A T I N G O U R C H I L D R E N F O R A C H A N G I N G W O R L D David N. Perkins Cover design by Adrian Morgan Cover images: young boy photograph © George Manga | Getty young girl photograph © Ashok Rodrigues | Getty Copyright © 2014 by David N. Perkins. All rights reserved. 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ISBN 978-1-118-84408-3 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-118-84407-6 (ebk) ISBN 978-1-118-84415-1 (ebk) Printed in the United States of America first edition HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 c o n t e n t s Acknowledgments ix IntroductIon: leArnIng for tomorrow 1 1 lIfeworthy leArnIng: where knowledge goes In leArners’ lIves 7 2 leArnIng AgendAs: the mIxed BlessIngs of AchIevement, InformAtIon, And expertIse 27 3 BIg understAndIngs: leArnIng thAt mAtters In leArners’ lIves 49 4 BIg QuestIons: leArnIng Beyond whAt’s settled And known 71 5 lIfereAdy leArnIng: mAkIng whAt’s worth leArnIng reAdy for lIfe 97 v vi contents 6 the seven seAs of knowledge: lIfeworthy leArnIng from the dIscIplInes 123 7 wAys of knowIng: powerful pAtterns of thought from the dIscIplInes And Beyond 143 8 Buckets of knowledge: orgAnIzIng content Across the yeArs of educAtIon 171 9 BIg know-how: twenty-fIrst-century skIlls And Beyond 197 10 knowledge on the wAy to wIsdom 223 notes 251 Index 261 To grandchildren Maggie, David, and Sandy: may you always be learners. a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s where to begin? beginning at the beginning does not work so well because there is no one source, rather, a maze of tributaries merging into the flow of these pages. Certainly one principal tributary was an inquiry on teaching for understanding I conducted during the 1990s with principal colleagues Howard Gardner, Vito Perrone, and Martha Stone Wiske, with gener- ous support from the Spencer Foundation. We developed a research- based conception of understanding and how to foster it. The resulting practices have found places in thousands of classrooms, informed fur- ther research, and get some press in this book as well. Another more recent tributary was my previous book Making Learning Whole (Jossey-Bass, 2009), an effort to synthesize key ideas about the teaching-learning process. That book includes brief appearances of some of the themes expanded in these pages. In a loose sense, one might view this book as a companion to it, the earlier work address- ing mostly how teaching and learning work best, this one mostly what is worth learning. Further impetus came from a doctoral dissertation by Nina Abraham Palmer completed in 2009 under my supervision, “What Is Worth Teaching and Why: How Do We Justify What We Teach?” Nina’s ix x acknowledgments research had quite a different focus from this book, addressing from an analytical philosophical perspective patterns of justification for what’s worth teaching, but the conversations around the dissertation enriched my own thinking about what’s worth teaching. The ideas shared here show influences of several other projects in which I’ve been involved in recent years. Let me mention with apprecia- tion: WIDE World, a teacher and school leader online learning initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, developed with longtime colleagues Martha Stone Wiske, David Zarowin, and Nathan Finch, and both supported and insightfully advised by Al and Kate Merck; the evolution of the Visible Thinking initiative, first at Lemshaga Akademi near Stockholm, with principal colleagues Shari Tishman and Ron Ritchhart and support from Peter Wallenberg and the Stiftelsen Carpe Vitam Foundation and later at Bialik College, Melbourne, with princi- pal colleagues Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church and support from the college itself and the Abe and Vera Dorevitch Foundation; the Learning Innovations Laboratory program that Daniel Wilson and I and several other colleagues conduct at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for leaders concerned with learning in corporate and government organizations; and the Leading Learning That Matters initiative, also with Daniel Wilson, sponsored by Independent Schools of Victoria, Australia, in coordination with Director of the Development Centre Karin Morrison and Chief Executive Michelle Green. Several individuals directly supported writing this book. Justin Reich helped me think about history education, compiling sources and insightfully analyzing trends and dilemmas. Later, he led a group exam- ining similar issues in science education. The members of the group were Therese Arsenault, Kathryn Ribay, Gene Roundtree, and Monica Yudron. All of these contributions were tremendously valuable. Flossie Chua assisted me with sources and their interpretations over the last years of writing. This book would have considerably less to offer were it not for her help. Both her systematicity and her insights have been valuable for a number of themes taken up in these pages, including, for example, surveying ways in which schools and nations treat twenty-first-century skills, and compiling practices for Acknowledgments xi selecting literature for instruction. Let me add thanks to Jim Reese for contributing to that. Much appreciation also goes to Stephanie Kacoyanis, and, before her, Mandanna Farhoodi, who assisted with ref- erences and various practical mechanics of crafting the book. A couple of years ago, several faculty members of the American School in London, led by Peter Lutkoski, undertook a small project with Veronica Boix Mansilla and me around ways to identify big under- standings. Our work together was fruitful and its resonances appear in various ways in this book. More generally, I have had conversations with many other friends and colleagues about what’s worth learning for the modern era. They marshaled their insights in areas from the arts to literature to politics to everyday life. They shared not only their own thoughts but exam- ples and sources. Here is a partial list in alphabetical order, but I am sure I have missed people, for which I apologize: Angela Bermudez, Kier Bloomer, Mario Carretero, Alan Collins, Phillip Cousins, Diane Downs, Noel Entwistle, Hunter Gehlbach, Tina Grotzer, Linor Hadar, Lois Hetland, Jim Reese, Rod Rock, Gavriel Salomon, Yesha Sivan, David Eddy Spicer, Sid Strauss, Bob Swartz, Shari Tishman, Chris Unger, Daniel Wilson, and Carlos Vasco. Where I have drawn on their pub- lished work, I have included citations. Besides educators, partners in conversation have been my wife, Ann; sons Tom and Ted, and Ted’s wife, Doina, and grandchildren Maggie, David, and Sandy. Classes I have taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education have served directly and indirectly as test beds for some of the ideas here. Indeed, I used early drafts of certain chapters as readings in a few of those classes. The mix of enthusiasm, questions, and critique was an important shaping factor. Important in much the same way has been the opportunity to share versions of these ideas with educators in a number of conference set- tings in various parts of the world. Again, the responses have proved immensely valuable. This entire endeavor has been informed by the rich context of Project Zero, a research and development organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Education not so far from its fiftieth birthday, led xii acknowledgments currently by Daniel Wilson, before that by Shari Tishman, before that by Steve Seidel, and before that by Howard Gardner and me, founding members and both of us still actively involved. The organization was created by the noted philosopher Nelson Goodman. I have sought to draw the ideas and examples in this book from a wide range of sources across education and educational research, but I have certainly dipped most often into the diverse work of my colleagues at Project Zero. I also extend gratitude to my long-time agent, Faith Hamlin of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, for her counsel regarding and help placing this book, as with others over the years; and to Kate Bradford, my editor at Jossey-Bass, and her colleagues for their feedback and support. For sure, there would be no river of words between these covers with- out the many sources named above. Of course, none is to be blamed for any whirlpools readers may encounter. Blame me by all means, but I’m hoping for a reasonably smooth flow. Future Wise Introduction: Learning for Tomorrow In the back of the class, there’s that Idly wavIng hand. you’ve been teachIng long enough to be pretty sure that hand was going to go up as soon as you got started on this topic, and so it does, with an annoying indo- lence. All right. You gesture toward the hand, Let’s hear it. And of course Smartass says, “Why do we need to know this?” Maybe that’s happened to you. It certainly has to me, even teaching at university level. Or maybe back in the day, you yourself were one of those smartasses who once or twice raised a hand and asked that ques- tion. Full disclosure: I was too. As a teacher, I hate that question. It’s an uppity question, simply disrespectful. We teachers work hard at what we do. The uppity ques- tion often signals a student who is not willing to give a potentially interesting topic half a chance. Also, let’s confess that in many classrooms, multiple forces shape what gets taught. Good answers to the uppity question are not always handy, so awkward stopgap answers tend to take their place: “Because it’s part of the unit goals.” “Because you’ll need it for the test.” “Because you’ll need to know it next year.” As a teacher, I hate that question, but when I cool down and think about it, the uppity question is a good one. Let’s remember the clas- sic legend of Pandora, who opened a box she wasn’t supposed to and released a host of ills upon the world. Asking the uppity question, like 1 2 future wise opening Pandora’s box, creates a mess, especially if the lid stays open long enough to get serious. However, what in the legend of Pandora inspired her transgression? Curiosity—a curiosity intense enough to carry her past propriety and lead her to challenge boundaries. So I think Pandora got a bum rap. I’m a Pandora fan. After all, the human condition is built on curiosity despite all its risks—curiosity about how the world works, what tools might do what jobs, what the lands and people are like on the other side of the ocean. Some inquiries are troublesome, but there is such a thing as produc- tive trouble, so let’s include curiosity about, “Why do we need to know this?” Can you find a more important question to ask about education? After all, “Why do we need to know this?” is an uppity version of one of the most important questions in education, a question with only three words: What’s worth learning in school ? When that ballistic missile comes from the back of the room, it’s a good reminder that the question doesn’t just belong to state school boards, authors of textbooks, writers of curriculum standards, and other elite. It’s on the minds of our students. This entire book is about how we answer that question. The Expanding Universe of What’s Worth Learning Teachers can be smartasses too. Although in most settings curriculum trundles along its traditional tracks, many teachers in many schools have gotten uppity, pushing hard on the boundaries of what’s usually taught. There are at least six broad trends—I call them the six beyonds: 1. Beyond basic skills—twenty-first-century skills and dispositions. There’s a global trend toward cultivating critical and creative thinking, collaborative skills and dispositions, leadership, entrepreneur- ship, and related skills and dispositions that speak strongly to living and thriving in our era. Introduction 3 2. Beyond the traditional disciplines—renewed, hybrid, and less familiar disciplines. Here we find attention to such themes as bioethics, ecology, recent ideas from psychology and sociology, and other areas that address the opportunities and challenges of our times. 3. Beyond discrete disciplines—interdisciplinary topics and problems. Many curricula introduce students to daunting contemporary problems of an emphatically interdisciplinary character, for instance, the causes and possible cures of poverty or the trade-offs of dif- ferent energy sources. 4. Beyond regional perspectives—global perspectives, problems, and studies. Here we find attention not just to local or national but also to global matters, for instance, world history or the global inter- active economic system or the possible meanings of global citizenship. 5. Beyond mastering content—learning to think about the world with the content. Educators are encouraging learners not just to master content academically but also to notice where content connects to life situations, yields insights, and prompts productive action. 6. Beyond prescribed content—much more choice of what to learn. In some settings, educators are supporting and coaching learners in choices about what to study well beyond the typical use of electives. Collectively these six reflect a worry widespread among thought- ful teachers and others concerned with the shape of education. What’s conventionally taught may not develop the kinds of citizens, workers, and family and community members we want and need. The basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, even if strongly developed, aren’t enough. The familiar disciplines in their traditional versions, sitting in their silos, constrained by regional perspectives, and taught to all com- ers for purely academic understanding aren’t enough. The universe of what’s seen as worth learning is expanding. Students asking why we need to know this and teachers exploring the six beyonds make for interesting partners. While the students ques- tion the worth of what’s typically taught, the teachers reach toward 4 future wise the worth of what typically isn’t taught—two faces to the puzzle of what’s worth learning. I’m Not Going to Tell You What’s Worth Learning What’s worth learning may be our fundamental question, but I promise not to answer it. For one reason, the question is too broad. Many things are worth learning for particular individuals at particular moments in life—a fam- ily planning a Florida vacation, a person taking on a new sales job, a kid tackling the latest video game. This book concerns only what’s worth learning for most people. For another reason, many things worth learning are best learned outside school. This book concerns only what’s worth learning in school. For a third, many things are worth learning for particular pro- fessional roles, through specialization in universities and technical schools. This book concerns only what’s worth learning before profes- sional specialization. It mainly has to do with the first dozen years or so of education. It also has to do with the first years of college in programs that emphasize general education rather than early specialization. However, even for the first dozen years of formal education, I’m not going to tell you exactly what’s worth learning. I’m not going to offer a long list of the thousand things worth learning. I’m not going to offer a short list of the most important disciplines. I’m not going to announce the one correct framework for twenty-first-century skills, or an array of Timely Topics for Our Times. Why not? Because there does not appear to be one best answer to what’s worth learning. What’s worth learning is a fundamental problem for education today, but here’s the thing: the problem is not so much finding the one best answer as getting beyond rather bad answers. Yes, that’s what lies behind most conventional curricula today: somewhat bad answers to the fundamental question. Yes, we teach a lot that isn’t Introduction 5 worth learning! Yes, we also neglect much that is worth learning. If this seems surprising, the pages that come make a case for it. Accordingly, instead of offering a catechism of what’s worth learn- ing, the mission of this book is to explore better ways to think about the question. My hope is that these pages may offer all of us a kind of tool kit: key concepts, criteria, and ways of prioritizing that will help us all arrive at better answers to what’s worth learning in our classes, our schools, our school systems, and our nations. Such a reimagining of education is something we desperately need to address the lives that today’s learners are likely to live in our dizzyingly complex contempo- rary society. 1 Lifeworthy Learning Where Knowledge Goes in Learners’ Lives When fourth graders, high school sophomores, or college freshmen ask, “Why do we need to know this?” we know what they are worried about. They don’t see the meaningfulness of the topic on the table, at least not the meaningfulness for them. They’d like to feel that what they’re learning today is knowledge for the future. They’d like to feel that it would contribute significantly to the lives they are likely to live. They are looking for what might be called, to borrow a phrase from business, return on investment (ROI), not just in monetary but in any terms— professional, civic, family, involvement with the arts, or understanding better the world we encounter daily. Sometimes they are wrong to be skeptical. They can’t see beyond the horizon of the week or month to how a particular bundle of knowl- edge might serve them well in the future in some way. But sometimes they may be right. They may share an unease expressed by John Dewey in his 1916 work, Democracy and Education: “Only in education, never in the life of farmer, sailor, merchant, phy- sician, or laboratory experimenter, does knowledge mean primarily a store of information aloof from doing.” They may well suspect that the complicated steps of mitosis (the process of asexual cell division, in case you’ve forgotten), details of the Boxer Uprising (in China at the end of the eighteenth century, opposing Western intrusions and influences), 7 8 future wise or multiple linear equations will not come up significantly or even often in the lives they are likely to live. Likely to matter in the lives learners are likely to live: that’s a very useful phrase, but it’s also a bit of a mouthful. So let’s attach a single word to it: lifeworthy, that is, likely to matter in the lives learners are likely to live. Lifeworthy as Key What’s lifeworthy learning is a broad qualitative judgment, and it’s one that young students in particular are not in a very good position to make. The complaining students might be right or wrong for that moment. But certainly the question of lifeworthiness is right for edu- cation broadly. How often is a particular fact, understanding, or skill likely to come up? With what importance? Would it grow in breadth and depth and significance over time—or do we simply forget it? When teachers expand the range of education to explore those six beyonds—introducing twenty-first-century skills, new advances in the disciplines, interdisciplinary studies, and so on—they display a concern with lifeworthy learning. They foresee that a curriculum of much wider than traditional scope speaks more powerfully to the lives learners are likely to live. Indeed, educating for lifeworthy learning has always been central to what makes human beings human. David Christian, writing about “big history” (which begins with the big bang and progresses by stages to the emergence of humans, early civilizations, and modernity), contrasts humans with other primates. Creatures like chimpanzees, for example, bright as they are in some ways, are living today essentially the same way that they did 1 million years ago. If, for an interesting measure, you estimate the share of energy they use from the overall flow of energy from the sun striking Earth, it remains essentially the same per chimp. The story is radically different for human beings. Contemporary lifeways for human beings are hardly anything like their lifeways of 100,000 or even 500 years ago. The average energy use by each human and his or her activities (including electricity, heating, and goods that Lifeworthy Learning 9 required energy for their manufacture) is several orders of magnitude higher than the energy share of our human ancestors, an attainment that comes with a dark side: our huge and precarious impact on the environment. What has made this possible? Big brains? Sure. Speech? Certainly. The later development of writing? Absolutely. But most centrally, Christian urges, it is collective learning — in other words, education in its broadest sense of passing on lifeworthy learning to others. It’s this that has allowed the human species to share, accumulate, and extend knowledge generation after generation. It’s this that enables people today to search for the Higgs boson in physics or live out parts of their lives in Second Life, the vast online environment that itself constitutes a kind of culture, or simply have coffee at Starbucks made from beans from the other side of the world. Chimpanzees and a number of other creatures learn quite well, even with a measure of insight, but they show very little collective learning. Education in its broadest sense gives knowledge much more of a lifeworthy future than it would otherwise have, dying with the learner. Early forms of education—the young in hunter-gatherer groups at the feet of the elders, the private tutors of the Roman elite, apprenticeship practices in the medieval guilds—sought in various ways to leverage col- lective learning toward a greater return on investment. Today’s educa- tional systems, despite our complaints that they are not doing as well as we would like, have a breadth simply astounding by the measure of even the recent past. Participation in education, as student, as teacher, as parent, as planner, as policymaker, as developer of materials, is par- ticipation in a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human. Lifeworthy at Risk Recognizing this, we also need to recognize a weirdness in formal edu- cation today that goes back to the uppity question. The lifeworthiness of the multitudinous facts and ideas in the typical curriculum is spotty. It seems not to have been thought through very carefully. 10 future wise The default mind-set goes something like this: “These are the things good to know. After all, they are there in the textbooks, and someone put them in the textbooks for some reason.” So most educational initi- atives focus on signs of short-term success: doing well on assignments and scoring well on tests in the course of the school year, without much thinking about the long-term return on investment. A more sophisticated defense of at least some conventional edu- cation would go something like this: “These ideas are fundamental to our understanding of the world; they figure centrally in science, history, mathematics, literature.” That’s certainly better than “someone put them in the textbooks.” However, what if many of these ideas, central though they might be to particular disciplines or professions, hardly ever come up in significant ways in the lives most learners are likely to live? Are they truly worth learning? It depends what we mean by worth. Maybe they are worth learning in some intrinsic sense, that is, good to know in principle. But that answer works only if they stay known. The hard fact is that our minds hold on only to knowledge we have occasion to use in some corner of our lives—personal, artistic, civic, something else. Overwhelmingly knowl- edge unused is forgotten. It’s gone. Whatever its intrinsic value might be, it can’t be lifeworthy unless it’s there. Maybe we need to get beyond a presumptive “good to know.” Knowledge is good to know only if there are occasions that call on it and keep it alive and available. To be worth knowing, knowledge has to go somewhere. When Lifeworthy Thrives Try This What did you learn during your first twelve years of education that matters in your life today? Lifeworthy Learning 11 You might find it interesting to take a minute to jot down two or three topics or skills in answer to this question. But don’t make it too easy for yourself. Let’s not count basic literacy and numeracy. Of course, those figure all the time in people’s lives. They are lifeworthy learning, no question. Such basics are not at issue here. At the other end of education, let’s not count specifically pro- fessional knowledge. I’m reminded here of the Gary Larson cartoon where, in the midst of surgery, one surgeon wonders aloud how many chambers the heart has. Of course, specifically professional learning is lifeworthy for that life. So not counting the most basic basics and not counting professional knowledge, what did you learn that matters in your life today? To ask such a question is to look for knowledge that has already yielded a return on investment in our own experience. I’ve put this query informally to several dozen individuals over the past several years. The good news is that people often have exciting and even inspiring answers. Here are a couple of favorite examples. One person pointed to the French Revolution, about the last thing I would have expected to hear, since my student experience of the French Revolution gave me little to celebrate. But here was this person’s comment: “Through the French Revolution, I was able to understand the generalities of world conflict— for instance, how the lack of freedom, poverty, overtaxation, weak econ- omies, the struggle between the Church and state, or social inequity has always been a reason to engage in war.” Clearly for this learner, the French Revolution became much more than a pile of facts. It func- tioned as a lens through which he could see the troubles of the world in many other venues. For him, it was certainly lifeworthy learning. Here is another example: “Understanding of energy and climate change issues . . . has not only proven useful in everything from every- day decisions about my transport and consumer choices, but also in political decisions, social interactions, and life philosophy.” We live in an age of ecological concern, but it’s questionable how many people take the dilemmas of our planet to heart. This person plainly does, and schooling contributed to the mind-set. 12 future wise What people have to say about knowledge that has been important to them ranges from historical perspectives through ecological con- cerns to political responsibility, leadership skills, and on and on. Here’s yet another example: Throughout my life thus far, music and performing arts has been a significant part of life through lessons, performances, and competitions. . . . These experiences and learning offered an outlet from my traditional schooling and allowed me to develop discipline, analytical skills, focus, and expression. Furthermore, my involvement with dance and music offered me opportunities to interact with others and develop collaboration, effective listening, and leadership skills. These are skills that are needed in any organization, not just an orchestra, a dance ensemble, or a nonprofit arts organization. I have utilized what I have learned and applied them in business, school, and every other setting that I have encountered. Of course, these examples celebrate the experience of particular individuals. Other students with very similar school experiences might not have made nearly as much of them. However, the point is that learning about the French Revolution or ecological concerns or the arts carries the potential for knowledge that lasts and matters to peo- ple’s lives. Moreover, a close look at these examples reveals a key ingredient: these learners all generalized the significance of their experiences well beyond the obvious reach, to other facets of the world and to aspects of their personal beliefs and behavior. When Lifeworthy Falters The quadratic equation, that venerable and universal feature of algebra 1, offers a cautionary tale. Here’s an activity I have done with a number of groups in various parts of the world. Lifeworthy Learning 13 Try This Question 1. How many people in the room at one time or another in the course of their precollege education studied quadratic equations? [Here, virtually all the hands in the room go up. Did your hand go up?] Question 2. How many people have used a quadratic equation in the last ten years? [Here, maybe only 5 percent or 10 percent of the hands go up. Is your hand still up?] Question 3. How many people have used quadratic equations during the last ten years in a setting outside education? If your application was within education, put your hands down. [Now almost all the hands are down, leaving only two or three even in a large group. Is your hand still up?] The uncomfortable fact is that almost everyone studies quadratic equations, relatively few people use them, and hardly anyone uses them outside of teaching them. The topic of quadratic equations lives on in schools largely to equip the next generation of teachers to impart quadratic equations. Not so lifeworthy! Here is where some math teachers get peeved, although many do not. Some math teachers experience this little audience experiment quite reasonably as a particular version of the uppity question: they see it as challenging their commitment and good service. I completely understand this reaction. After all, most math teach- ers did not assemble the algebra 1 curriculum themselves. Moreover, arguably quadratic equations are an important part of the pyramid of mathematical understanding. I always feel moved to say that I have no personal animosity toward quadratic equations. In fact, I like quadratic equations and all sorts of mathematical structures. All my academic degrees are in mathematics, even though I slid over into cognitive psy- chology, learning theory, and education. Yet to answer the questions myself, I haven’t used quadratic equa- tions for anything for at least ten years. 14 future wise Lifeworthy versus Quadratic Equations “Sure,” anyone might say in a moment of caution, “I get the point. Lifeworthiness is important. But it’s not the only important value in learning.” Right—up to a point. Lifeworthiness is not the only important value. But it’s easy to miss the point that we are talking about: what’s worth learning for most people most of the time. Let’s look at some lines of thought here. How about Technical Needs? Understandably one might feel that we don’t want to surrender quad- ratic equations to the dustbin of the not-so-lifeworthy easily. Students headed in technical directions need quadratic equations. And there’s plenty of advocacy for certain rather specialized topics in any discipline because they play important roles in those disciplines. Right—up to a point. Technical understandings are important if that’s where the learner is headed. The question is which technical understandings? Any discipline offers endless technicalities that receive little or no allocation of time in typical education. In practice, people headed in technical directions learn what they need later on, at the college level. And of course, early on we don’t know who is headed in what direction. So the technical importance of a piece of knowledge is not in itself a very good reason to lavish precollege attention on it if it isn’t otherwise lifeworthy. Basic statistics and probability are technical understandings just as much as quadratic equations are. Try This In analogy to the “try this” about quadratic equations, have you used some basic understanding of probability or statistics in the last ten years? In the last year? In the last month? Lifeworthy Learning 15 Most likely, your answer is yes to all three. Matters of basic statis- tics and probability come up all the time in newspaper articles, insur- ance decisions, stock market investments, medical choices, and on and on. Statistics and probability are interesting and challenging areas of mathematical understanding. They are technical understandings just as much as quadratic equations are. Perhaps we should invest more time on such topics and less on quadratic equations, also using them as occasions to build mathematical thinking. To confront such possibili- ties is to take seriously the challenge of lifeworthy learning. How about Ways of Thinking in the Disciplines? One might suggest that the real aim of studying quadratic equations is to learn mathematical thinking and to inculcate the rigor of mathemat- ical thinking. Some teachers of mathematics have said exactly this to me. Indeed, mathematical thinking is a useful and beautiful tool. Also, it provides information about the content and style of the discipline that can inform eventual professional choices. The same certainly holds for other disciplines. Of course, quadratic equations often are taught in quite a mechanical way, but they can be taught in a richer way. So, right—up to a point. Indeed, chapter 7 focuses on the value of learning ways of thinking characteristic of the disciplines. It’s a learn- ing agenda of fundamental importance and very lifeworthy. However, why not have a twofer: Why not build curriculum around content that is both likely to come up significantly later and likely to develop mathematical thinking? Why not, for instance, teach more statistics and probability and build mathematical thinking around that and other topics with more general payoff than quadratic equations? As to rigor, statistics and probability are hardly soft subjects. They can be made just as rigorous as anyone might want. How about Literacy in the Disciplines? One might feel that some sense of quadratic equations is part of math- ematical literacy, important to having a broad sense of mathematical 16 future wise content. It’s background for becoming a well-oriented citizen of a sophisticated world. Right—as far as it goes. I wouldn’t suggest that we banish quadratic equations from the curriculum. However, quadratic equations come up much more often at the level of mention than at the level of dealing with them technically. Perhaps quadratic equations are a mathematical construct worthy of a kind of acquaintance knowledge, a general sense of what quadratic equations are like and what they can do and where to find out more, while skipping the weeks of graphing, factoring, study- ing the derivation of the quadratic formula, and so on. How about Loving That Kind of Thing? One might observe that some learners have an enthusiasm for particu- lar slices of learning. Shouldn’t they have a chance to learn it, cultivat- ing what might become a lifelong commitment, maybe professional but maybe important in other ways, as, for instance, the arts are for many people who are not professionally involved in the arts? Might there not be learners who love even quadratic equations? Well, that was me. I loved quadratic equations and was very happy to have an opportunity to learn them. So, right—as far as it goes. We should design education to find learn- ers’ enthusiasms and give them a chance to develop those enthusiasms, including technical enthusiasms, for instance, through electives or pat- terns of small group study or online modules or community mentoring. However, the basic curriculum can’t be molded around the individ- ual enthusiasms of learners. We need to figure out what’s likely to be lifeworthy for most students, kindling enthusiasm there as much as we can while also making room for individual enthusiasms. How about High-Stakes Testing and University Entrance Requirements? One might mutter that high-stakes tests and university entrance requirements commonly expect learners to know some very traditional Lifeworthy Learning 17 chunks of curriculum. Whatever the ideals are, we’re stuck with these realities. Right—kind of. In the short term, we’re stuck with accommodating to practical realities. However, many schools I know manage to serve those realities well while exploring fresh visions of what’s worth learning. Also, current realities can change through clarifying goals and renegoti- ating priorities. That’s what this book is ultimately intended to inspire. Without any champions, that will not happen. Surely it makes no sense to resign ourselves to an unproductive reality just because it is there. Close Encounters of the Third Kind To sum up, let’s remember Stephen Spielberg’s classic film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film takes its title from a classification of different levels of alien encounter. The first kind is simply a visual sighting of vehicles, the second kind notes physical evidence left in the environment, and the third kind entails seeing or meeting the aliens themselves. The levels of encounter seem remarkably suited to profil- ing the problem with quadratic equations. We know they’re there and might see them or traces of them occasionally, but almost never do we actually personally have to deal with one. No close encounters of the third kind. Over these last paragraphs, I’ve made a whipping boy of quadratic equations. So let me get even more uppity and ask this: How many chunks of knowledge in the typical curriculum are not like quadratic equations? How many truly lead to significant close encounters of the third kind? I don’t have a researched number, but I’d like to suggest that the percentage is low. Students are asked to learn a great deal for the class and for the test that likely has no role in the lives they will live— that is, a great deal that simply is not likely to come up again for them in a meaningful way. Of course, it’s still nice to know a lot. But remember, knowledge not used is simply forgotten, so today’s students don’t end up knowing all that a year later or ten years later. Moreover, what’s at stake here might remind us of the concept of opportunity cost from economics. 18 future wise Opportunity cost makes a fundamental point about decision making: when we decide in favor of one course of action, we forgo others that might have generated certain benefits. A cost of the path we choose is loss of benefits from the abandoned paths. With quadratic equations as with anything else, we have to ask not just whether they are nice to understand in themselves but what might have been learned instead. Remember that it’s not all doom and gloom. Recall the examples from the previous section. Ideas about poverty, overtaxation, weak economies, and so on (as in the French Revolution) generate plenty of close encounters of the third kind. So also do notions about energy and climate change. So also do general skills and mind-sets drawn from dance and music. Moreover, here’s a surprise for you: the study of quadratic equa- tions, treated in the right way, may promise more encounters of the third kind than it seems to right now. I’ll tell that story in a later chapter. Questing for Lifeworthy To envision what might be lifeworthy about what we teach surely is a fundamental act of the educational imagination. It’s an act that expresses the essential character of human beings as collective learners. Also, it’s an act perhaps too often neglected in the shaping of education by policymakers, parents, subject matter experts, teachers, and others. We need to get more learning return on investment in a smarter way. We need to have better answers to the uppity question. We need to pay more attention to the six beyonds. In envisioning what will turn out to be lifeworthy, we certainly won’t assume that prediction is easy. Nor will we assume that the answer is the same for everyone. Although we’ll deal largely in generali- ties, concrete decisions would vary somewhat by learner characteristics and cultural and geographical setting. As educators, our hope has to be that there are trends to tease out and put to work in the construction of education. The challenge of a curriculum rich with lifeworthy learning is more like a smart bet in the casino of life than it is a sure thing. Lifeworthy Learning 19 Decisions about what to teach get influenced at many levels by many different sorts of people: ministries of education, state school boards, local school boards, textbook publishers, textbook authors, expert panels representing the disciplines, parent interest groups, spe- cial interest groups, teachers with various latitude depending on the context, and sometimes even students. It’s not my aim in this book to take the power of decision away from those diverse bodies. How could we, even if we wanted to? Rather, let’s hope we can inform those decisions by encouraging more serious, vigorous, and creative envisioning of what learning might matter. Parents can consider the prospects: What do I think my chil- dren should know, and how can they best learn it, and how can I help make that happen? Teachers, mentors, and coaches can engage such questions as well: What should my charges come to know, and know in a way that lasts and expands and informs their lives? Policymakers at the highest level can take these questions to heart: What do people need to learn toward living well and contributing to society? And how can we get this knowledge into the curriculum in ways that are affordable and scalable? It’s inevitable that in any quest for lifeworthy learning, some conten- tious value-laden and political issues arise. Consider, for instance, the controversy in some parts of the United States and a few other parts of the world around teaching the theory of evolution as natural selection. More broadly, history education involves starkly contested approaches around the world: Do we want a comfortable account of how our nation grew, with polite acknowledgment of some unfortunate bobbles along the way, or do we want a more critical and comparative examination? What version of history young students should be taught is a contro- versy explored deeply in Mario Carretero’s Constructing Patriotism. I’m clear about my personal response to these high-blood-pressure questions in the body politic: of course, we should foster educational engagement with controversial themes and perspectives. However, let me reassure those who feel otherwise. A general commitment to life- worthy learning does not require a bold embrace of hot topics. While some lifeworthy topics boil with controversy, most do not; examples are 20 future wise many topics around health care (not counting abortion or birth control or the Affordable Care Act) or twenty-first-century skills (not counting critical thinking about religion) or the biosphere (not counting evo- lution) or the immensely useful, albeit dry-sounding, probability and statistics. So we can readily construct lifeworthy curricula that for the most part dodge controversial topics. I feel we’d be missing something important by doing so, but not nearly as much as we’re missing by broadly ignoring lifeworthiness. In summary, this is challenging terrain. In no way are the ideas in this book likely to settle anything. Perhaps, though, they can help to deepen the conversation, bringing into the foreground a consideration of what’s worth learning that’s usually banished to the background. Perhaps these ideas will help people reassess the worth of what is con- ventionally taught and give more presence in education to broad under- standings and powerful ways of thinking and communicating. I hope so, and invite everyone to join in this hope because we occupy a historical moment where envisioning lifeworthy learning seems par- ticularly important for our children and their children. Why now? Here’s why. Educating for the Unknown The uppity question, “Why do we need to know this?” is always worth asking in the big picture, however annoying it may be coming from some tenth grader on Tuesday morning in the middle of studying Euclidean geometry. However, the uppity question takes on particular importance in our world and times. Historically, precollege education has focused on educating for the known, the tried and true, the established canon. This made very good sense in the many periods and places where most children’s lives were likely to be more or less like their parents’ lives. However, wagering that tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday does not seem to be a very good bet today. Perhaps we need a different vision of education, a vision that foregrounds educating for the unknown as much as for the Lifeworthy Learning 21 known. Perhaps we need a vision of education that’s more “future wise,” reflecting our best guesses about what’s most likely to happen and fore- grounding flexible knowledge likely to inform whatever does happen. To be sure, it’s nice to know everything in those textbooks. We want to be careful about what we toss. Knowing a lot well at an acquaintance level—a cappella, cholesterol, zygote—is a hallowed mission of education still relevant today. We hope that younger and older learners will come to know a lot well, including dates like 1066 and 1492 well buttered with their significance, models from the natural sciences (Ohm’s law, the law of gravitation, atomic structure), profiles of notable figures from the history of politics and ideas (Caesar, Confucius, Madame Curie), forms of government and how they work (democracy, communism, social- ism, autocracy), literary works of note (Shakespeare, Cervantes, Li Po), practical matters (office management, home accounting, gardening), personal health care (basic sanitation, cholesterol, exercise), tasty tid- bits (the wives of Henry VIII), and far more. One could add dozens of particulars to these and extend the list for hour after hour. And yet today’s world does not seem very friendly to an ency- clopedic education that has little time to do much more than build acquaintance knowledge. The fixation on the heap of information in the textbooks is itself part of the problem because the world we are educating learners for is something of a moving target, itself as much unknown as known. It’s commonplace to hear that the world is changing faster than ever before, so education better prepare learners for such a world. Actually I’m not so sure about the world changing faster than ever before. Do the excitement and trauma of change careen any more rapidly in cur- rent times than during the peak of the Industrial Revolution, with its profound dislocations of people and transformations of lifestyle? How in any case would we gauge the pace of change precisely enough to declare one era of flux speedier than another? But certainly things are changing fast, and what does seem distinct is the character of the changes afoot. Contemporary communications and transportation are pushing the world together. This has been happening for a long time in limited 22 future wise ways, from Roman roads to transatlantic vessels, but today it has reached a point where communication is near instantaneous and travel to most populated places a matter of a few hours. As people and peoples rub up against one another, the sparks are sometimes generative culturally and economically, and sometimes they are frightening. Samuel Huntington, for one notorious and controversial example, wrote about a likely (in his view) clash of civilizations between the West and other widespread identities, for instance, Islamic, African, or Confucian. Doomsayers aside, less-well-off countries struggle to achieve the economic success and material comfort of flagship nations, even as their very striving in some ways threatens those on top. The planet suffers from what pop songster Paul Simon tagged “too many people on the face of the Earth,” with problems of global warming and freshwater supplies looming. At the same time, world music, artistic exchange, economic synergies, and scholarly collaborations thrive. Research on today’s workplaces and professional roles observes a profound shift in what it means to function effectively in today’s job market. In the most economically advantaged nations, the twentieth century saw a dramatic transformation from resource-based economies such as farming and mining to manufacturing economies and beyond that to service and information economies. Effective participation in these calls for more than the basics of education, a point emphasized by Richard Murnane and Frank Levy, among others, in their probing analysis of what education provides and what the workplace demands. The demographics show a thinning out of blue-collar roles compared to relatively unskilled and poorly paid labor, on the one hand, and, on the other, roles that require effective communications, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. To thrive in today’s society, people require education well beyond the basics. Meanwhile, biological research into the fundamental dynamics of life holds strong prospects of extending the human life span consider- ably in the course of the next fifty years. What sense would a K–12 or K–16 education make in a world where people live to be, say, 150 years old? Today we speak casually of lifelong learning, but in a few decades, it will likely be so much the norm as hardly to require its own label. Lifeworthy Learning 23 Cycles of formal learning as well as enriched processes of on-the-job learning seem destined to become routine. With all this in view, the very idea of educating just for some set of canonical knowns, however carefully selected, seems grievously limited. It also gives short shrift to Pandora’s prime character trait of curiosity. The agenda of education should not just be passing along the contents of already open boxes but fostering curiosity for those still unopened or barely cracked open. We need a bolder agenda. Let’s call it educating for the unknown. Yet the very turn of phrase has a paradoxical quality. How can we possibly know the unknown well enough to educate for it? But wait: as we stand back from the challenge, it does not seem so unapproachable. Although we do not know exactly what the world will be like in ten or forty years, we certainly can make some good guesses. Thinking back to our examples so far of good return on investment from knowledge, it would be surprising if issues of poverty and taxation found in the French Revolution example disappeared from the world in the next twenty years. It would be surprising if issues of ecological stability, water supplies, and the threat of epidemic diseases enabled by a torrent of international travel were not still significant. Specific pre- dictions aside, in a time of change and uncertainty, general capabilities take on special power—for instance, skills of communication, collabo- ration, problem solving, and learning. Educating for the unknown, far from an unapproachable para- dox, can be an alluring and inspiring agenda. Rather than counseling despair, educating for the unknown favors a vision of learning aggres- sive in its effort to foster curiosity, enlightenment, empowerment, and responsibility in a complex and dynamic world. It favors a broad and visionary reach for meaningful learning. Toward Reimagining Education With that on the table, I offer a brief preview of the ideas to come. Once we recognize how much of the typical curriculum is not so lifeworthy, 24 future wise we have to wonder why. If the problem isn’t taken seriously, what’s happening instead? Chapter 2 explores the puzzle, examining three rival learning agendas: achievement, information, and expertise. Each has its own worth, but all sweep the problem of lifeworthy learning under the rug. So what is lifeworthy? What kinds of knowledge have especially promising payoffs in the lives learners are likely to live? Chapter 3 introduces the idea of big understandings, that is, broadband understandings likely to come up in diverse circumstances and inform thought and action. Our three examples of good knowledge outcomes from earlier— the French Revolution as a lens, energy and climate change, and dance and music as cultivating analytic skills and focus and expression—are all big understandings. Chapter 4 explores big questions, the inquiry partner to big understandings. Big questions both lead into big under- standings and point beyond them toward further exploration. Although our center of gravity is content, not process—what’s worth learning, not how it’s best learned—we can’t neglect process. Without the right sort of teaching and learning, content lifeworthy in principle can turn out not at all lifeready in practice—not at all ready to pop up on appropriate occasions and help make sense of the world. Chapter 5 examines the sort of teaching and learning that can bring big understandings and big questions alive in learners’ lives. The next chapters build on this to explore big understandings from the disciplines, the ways of thinking characteristic of the disciplines, how to organize multiyear curricula with lifeworthy learning in the foreground, and the place of twenty-first-century skills. Chapter 10 sums up how we might think more deeply about what’s worth learning and make better choices toward lifeworthy learning. The chapter also explores a lofty prospect: teaching knowledge on the way to wisdom. To keep track of the developing ideas chapter by chapter, at the end of each chapter the “Reimagining Education” section charts the pro- gress in terms of four quests. Together they make one big conversation toward sorting out the place of lifeworthy learning. Any teacher, parent, student, school board member, university educator, or political figure Lifeworthy Learning 25 concerned with education might engage this conversation. Here are the four quests: 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning in contrast with not-so-lifeworthy learning 2. Choosing what lifeworthy learning to teach from the many possibilities 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning in ways that make the most of it 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum 2 Learning Agendas The Mixed Blessings of Achievement, Information, and Expertise I got my fIrst bIcycle on my bIrthday In January, not the best bIcycle moment for a boy growing up in the middle of snowy Maine. But the gods of child-hood smiled with a winter thaw, subduing the snow to patches on the lawns and rows along the sides of the street. It was riding weather, or close enough. The new two-wheeler seemed like a tippy catastrophe of a gizmo, but my dad had a solution: our first test runs were on the driveway. I got aboard as he steadied the bike. No training wheels for me! He ran along- side with a hand on the frame as I tried out the pedals. We did that a couple of times, pretty soon he let go, and I discovered something mirac- ulous: the bicycle almost balanced itself. Soon I was riding all over town. Those winter rides come back to me today as we ponder the nature of knowledge. What is knowledge? Knowledge is like a bicycle. That is, knowledge is for going somewhere. If we know something about the French Revolution or the nature of democracy or statistics and probability or opportunity cost, we want to go somewhere with it. Maybe we want to understand an issue in the headlines or think about a medical decision or get a project off the ground in the most effective way. For any of these missions and thousands more, we want to go somewhere with what we know. Of course, “going somewhere” is just another way of calling for knowl- edge likely to matter in the lives learners are likely to live—lifeworthy 27 28 future wise learning. As I noted in chapter 1, a great deal of what we teach and learn doesn’t go very far, as a bicycle with tiny wheels wouldn’t or a bicycle with wheels designed by Salvador Dalí wouldn’t. Only a small percentage of teachers and schools are seriously exploring the six beyonds mentioned in the Introduction to this book: twenty-first-century skills, updated treat- ment of the disciplines, interdisciplinary topics, global perspectives, connecting content to life situations, and much more choice of what to learn. They plainly think that such approaches carry learners much further. When you think about it, this go-gap is very odd indeed. Every par- ent, politician, and educator recognizes that education aims to prepare people for their personal, civic, and professional lives. So what stands in the way of lifeworthy learning despite all those good intentions? Some factors are familiar to anyone acquainted with the educa- tional scene. Conventional curriculum is chained to the bicycle rack. It sits solidly in the minds of parents: “I learned that. Why aren’t my chil- dren learning it?” The enormous investment in textbooks and the cost of revising them gives familiar elements of the curriculum a longer life span than they might perhaps deserve. Curriculum suffers from some- thing of a crowded garage effect: it generally seems safer and easier to keep the old bicycle around than to throw it out. Granted all that, a large part of the challenge appears to lie not in educational inertia but, paradoxically, in noble educational aspirations. Three prominent and important agendas often stand in the way of life- worthy learning: achievement, information, and expertise. We certainly don’t want to dismiss them, yet all three have “soft tires”: they are not ready to go nearly as far as we need. Let’s see why. The Achievement Agenda and Its Soft Tires Considerable educational research and innumerable practical inter- ventions focus on the achievement gap—that deep canyon between the learning of middle-class, reasonably well-off people and the learning of disadvantaged youngsters. Particular ethnic groups in inner cities, rural populations in impoverished areas, and other segments of society Learning Agendas 29 consistently underperform compared to national norms. Increasing their mastery of reading, writing, computational competence, and basic knowledge has become an urgent mission for generations of educators. The achievement gap also refers to certain problems even in middle-class and up populations: stubborn shortfalls in, for exam- ple, solving story problems in mathematics, genuinely understanding tricky science concepts, and writing in a well-organized and compelling way. Special issues of journals debate its ins and outs, while diverse pro- grams tackle the challenge in tough settings. The achievement gap is often viewed as the paramount educational challenge of our times. The problem is a serious one, and not just for ideological reasons. Shortfalls in basic educational achievement are part of a pattern of lim- ited participation in, benefit from, and contribution to a contempo- rary society. The achievement gap is one element in the cycle of poverty, where parents, themselves undereducated and participating only in the lowest levels of the workforce, raise children locked into the same template. With the bicycle metaphor in mind, certainly champions of focusing on the achievement gap want to empower learners to go some- where with what they have learned. However, there are a couple of soft tires slowing the journey. For one, it’s not so much that we don’t understand the achievement gap as that we’re reluctant as a society to invest in fixing it. This is the eloquent argument from Linda Darling-Hammond in The Flat World and Education. Focusing on the United States but sketching circumstances elsewhere, Darling-Hammond sees a dramatic lack of intelligently equi-table economic and policy-based support for education. While the prob- lem has many facets, two figure centrally in this book: what’s taught and how it’s taught. As to the “how,” in chapter 2 of her book, Darling- Hammond rounds up research showing that quality teaching makes an enormous difference in achievement—greater than the impact of race and parent education combined. However, quality teaching varies hugely across more and less affluent areas in the United States, reflect- ing entrenched patterns of investment. Turning to what’s taught, Darling-Hammond shares evidence that schools differ greatly in level of challenge and opportunities for more 30 future wise advanced learning. Moreover, and somewhat surprising, supposedly lower-performing students gain much more ground from a higher level of challenge. At one point, she sums up the situation this way: “A sub- stantial body of research over the last 40 years has found that the com- bination of teacher quality and curriculum quality explains most of the school’s contribution to achievement, and that access to curriculum opportunities is a more powerful determinant of achievement than ini- tial achievement levels” (p. 54). Now for a second soft tire, one addressing lifeworthy learning point- blank. With the uppity question on our minds, we might consider another gap alongside the achievement gap. Let’s call it the relevance gap. The achievement gap asks, “Are students achieving X?” whereas the relevance gap asks, “Is X going to matter to the lives learners are likely to live?” If X is good mastery of reading and writing, both questions earn a big yes! Skilled, fluent, and engaged reading and writing marks both a challenging gap and a high-payoff attainment. That knowledge goes somewhere! However, if X is quadratic equations, the answers don’t match. Mastering quadratic equations is challenging, but these equa- tions are not so lifeworthy. Now fill in X with any of the thousands of topics that make up the typical content curriculum. Very often, these topics present significant challenges of achievement but with little return on investment in learners’ lives. Here’s the problem: the achievement gap is much more concerned with mastering content than with providing lifeworthy content. All that talk about achievement leaves little room for discussing what’s being achieved. To use the bicycle metaphor, a soft tire of the achieve- ment gap is its neglect of the relevance gap. Let’s take a topic area by way of example: geography. I learned what might be called descriptive geography, and probably you did too: cap- itals of the states, major rivers, and all that. To be sure, a rich fund of geographical information is a fine thing to have at one’s fingertips and an achievement to store up and keep handy. But let’s contrast descriptive geography with causal geography—how the locations of rivers, harbors, seas, mountains, forests, lakes, and other large-scale features of the land are forces that have shaped and continue to shape the course of history. Learning Agendas 31 At its grandest level, here is to be found the perspective advanced by Jared Diamond in his Pulitzer Prize–winning Guns, Germs, and Steel, where he argued systematically that the dominance of Eurasian civilization in the world today reflects the East-West sprawl of the Eurasian landmass among other things. Causal geography gives us a lens through which to see a wide range of historical and current phenomena both local and global. Such ideas offer much more lifeworthiness than a bag full of facts. They are likely to be experienced by learners as more meaningful and motivat- ing. Of course you can’t really learn causal geography without learning a lot of descriptive geography along with it because you need concrete cases to make sense of the big ideas. All in all, descriptive geography plus causal geography is likely to yield a lot more encounters of the third kind. So why don’t we see more attention to the relevance gap along- side the achievement gap? Well, attention to the relevance gap upsets the apple cart of conventional practice much more than attention to the achievement gap. The achievement gap is all about doing the same thing better. With the achievement gap as our target, we want to do a better job imparting skills and understandings we already try to teach. But embracing the challenge of the relevance gap asks us to reconsider deeply what schools teach in the first place. Topics and themes that have been part of typical curricula for centuries might get displaced, reduced, or reframed. Textbooks might need rewriting. Teachers would find honored parts of their disciplines under siege and new and tricky content knocking at the door—barbarians at the gate! To borrow from Al Gore, the problem of lifeworthy learning that so pervades typical curricula is an inconvenient truth. As with our planet’s precarious situation, ignoring an inconvenient truth is a dangerous way to deal with it! The Information Agenda and Its Soft Tires Education wants us to be well informed, but how well? For instance, what information do you have about cholesterol? Probably about as much as I do, and probably that’s enough. 32 future wise It wasn’t too long ago that my oldest son, his wife, my wife, and I found ourselves in the midst of a conversation about cholesterol. There was no big issue; we were all reasonably healthy. The conversation was more one of these idle after-dinner rambles, and I can’t remember as I write this exactly how the topic came up. Soon we slipped into a kind of a metaconversation, not just about cholesterol but how little we really knew about it. Exactly what is it? How does it accumulate? What is the chemical story behind it? Even when we attempted to pool the bits and pieces of our various recollections, the pool was only a puddle deep. Even so, we also recognized that the puddle added up to some prac- tical points, some matters to keep in mind. We knew our cholesterol could be tracked. We knew that if anyone’s cholesterol index moved into the red, there were drugs and diets that could help control it. We had a rough map that could help us navigate past the Sargasso Sea of saturated fats. A great deal of what anyone knows seems to have very much the character of this cholesterol knowledge. People know bits and pieces about a topic: enough to participate in a conversation, enough to ask a question, enough to read an article in the newspaper, enough to say yes to some things and no to some others. This is just about the level of knowledge most reasonably well-informed people might have concern- ing, say, poison ivy, Big Ben, Neanderthal man, Internet routers, Robert Frost, maple syrup, or hydrants. To give cholesterol sorts of knowledge a more formal label, one might speak of acquaintance knowledge. Acquaintance signals no particularly deep understanding but a kind of comfortable familiarity that allows everyday coping. And that’s important. You can’t understand everything deeply. Who has time? Many bits of acquaintance knowledge come up now and again or even frequently—for instance, descriptive knowledge about geography. When they do, we can deal with them readily in func- tional ways, just as we deal smoothly in minor interactions with people who are acquaintances. Acquaintances are not as deep as friendships, but there is a big difference between an acquaintance and a stranger. People familiar with the educational scene over the past couple of decades may see a link between acquaintance knowledge and the ideas Learning Agendas 33 of E. D. Hirsch, until retirement a professor at the University of Virginia. In 1987, Hirsch published a widely read book, Cultural Literacy, in which he argued for the importance of a shared base of common knowledge as the foundation of a common culture and competent literacy. Hirsch warned that typical efforts to boost literacy were ineffective because they identified literacy overly with the technical skills involved in decoding text, translating the printed word into the spoken sound. While certainly this was a critical ingredient, considerable research had demonstrated that effec- tive reading depends greatly on wide knowledge of the cultural world. A passage of text from a newspaper, a job application form, or assembly directions inevitably make innumerable assumptions about what the reader knows and what needs to be explained. Much of poor readers’ weak performance can be traced back to a thin knowledge base. The kind of knowledge Hirsch has in mind is very much acquaint- ance knowledge. Hirsch and his colleagues published The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy in an attempt to catalogue the concepts and phrases with which young people in America should become familiar. Yes, cholesterol is in the dictionary, defined as follows: “A white soapy substance found in the tissues of the body and in certain foods, such as animal fats, oils, and egg yolks. Cholesterol has been linked to heart disease and atherosclerosis. (It collects on the walls of arteries and interferes with the flow of blood.) High levels of cholesterol in the blood are con- sidered to be unhealthy” (p. 554). As this definition suggests, basic reading competency and, more broadly, communicational competency in a culture do not require espe- cially elaborate knowledge or deep understanding. Those newspaper articles, job application forms, and assembly directions do not assume depth and detail, simply acquaintance. The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy aims to support educators in developing that acquaintance. Its principle for selecting entries from a cappella to zygote reflects that function: words and phrases that seem too common to require any special attention are left out; so are distinctly rare and exotic words and phrases. Left in are items that members of our culture are likely to face with some frequency but might easily lack acquaintance with, especially if they come from impoverished or isolated backgrounds. 34 future wise Hirsch’s work struck a chord with the public. Parents fret endlessly when they discover that “today’s youth” don’t know how to find Korea on a map or what the capital of Brazil is. Often there is rhetoric about the way education used to be and how today it falls short. The tide to ensure that “today’s youth” are well informed is strong. Hirsch’s work can be seen as a sophisticated version of the same impulse, grounded not in a vague feeling about what kids ought to know but in a close analysis of the development of communication skills, with particular attention to populations displaying difficulty. To be sure, Hirsch has been criticized for cultural bigotry. He read- ily acknowledges that what counts as cultural literacy for one nation and another will be different. Indeed, there are now cultural literacy dictionaries for several nations. As to cultural diversity within a nation, he warns that if respect for various less central subcultures goes so far as not encouraging them to learn the commonplaces of the mainstream culture, this exacerbates their marginalization. Now back to the bicycle metaphor. On the positive side, Hirsch is certainly very much concerned with lifeworthiness. Hirsch and others of similar mind-set want to equip learners with good solid basic knowl- edge that goes somewhere—in particular, that enables them to function competently in society. Lifeworthiness tends not to be so much on the mind of people fixated on achievement for the test, but it is certainly on the mind of E. D. Hirsch. Indeed he is very concerned about the achieve- ment gap, tracing a large part of the gap back to lack of information. However, it seems to me that the mission to teach basic informa- tion has soft tires in three ways. First and foremost, we might worry that the mission here is very much information lifeworthiness rather than broader knowledge lifeworthiness. To recall the geography exam- ple again, it’s much more about geography as description than as causation. Second, is this acquaintance knowledge learned in ways that make it stick? Much depends on the teaching-learning approach. Under the banner of cultural literacy, some schools have drilled students in thou- sands of bits of “cholesterol knowledge” in the hopes of fattening up their cultural literacy. It’s not clear to me that this knowledge would Learning Agendas 35 last and inform linguistic competence as it’s supposed to. In general, memories do not last very well unless they encounter considerable rein- forcement in well-motivated naturalistic circumstances. How much did you remember a week, a month, or a year after the test? Third, I worry that the strong accent on information, and lots of it, may be partly misplaced in our contemporary media-rich world. After all, thanks to the Internet among other resources, information has become ridiculously easy to come by (if you can trust it). Try This Choose some trivial but not especially exotic bit of information you can’t quite remember, and see how fast you can find it on the Internet. Time yourself! Here’s a report on what I tried. I want to know the term for the dot over the letter i. I’m remembering that it actually has a name. A friend mentioned it to me a few months ago, but of course I’d forgotten it. Back in the day, such a question, if desperately important, would force an expedition to the library, and even there, I would hardly know how to look. Now my fingers make a quick excursion to Google. I type, “Dot over the letter i.” Immediately, a list of links appears. Which to click? I read down and don’t even have to choose: the text around the fourth link gives me the answer without clicking through: it’s called a tittle. Total time: fifty seconds. But let’s not stop there. Another link suggests that tittle is a more general term than just the dot over the letter i. I’m off to Dictionary .com, where tittle appears with multiple definitions. The entry from The Random House dictionary says, “Tittle is a dot or other small mark in writing or printing used as a diacritic, punctuation, etc.” In other words, it’s not just over the i, it’s over the j, and maybe it’s even the period at the end of the sentence by that definition. But The American Heritage dictionary says, “A small diacritical mark, such as an accent, vowel mark, or 36 future wise dot over an i.” I guess I feel better about that one, not ceding periods to the empire of the tittle! Total time: six minutes. To summarize, it’s reasonable for youngsters to learn a significant body of information that equips them as cultural participants. Such knowledge has somewhere to go. However, here are the soft tires: 1. Knowledge involves much more than information, as the chap- ters that follow explore. This can easily get lost in the informa- tion blizzard. 2. It’s good to have a lot of information, but information learned in a didactic way is likely simply to be forgotten. 3. A big reservoir of memorized information is somewhat less per- tinent than it used to be, with information on just about any- thing at our digital fingertips. The Expertise Agenda and Its Soft Tires Expertise is the Holy Grail of education. We would like learners to develop toward becoming truly expert writers for their level. We would like them to demonstrate sophisticated understanding of advanced mathematical concepts and procedures—multiple linear equations or the fundamentals of calculus, say. We would like them to come to per- sonal, subtle, and well-grounded interpretations of literature. We would like them to weave a fine web of connections and contrasts between the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. In summary, the reach toward expertise, even though at the level of basic education one hardly expects to attain it, involves a dual commitment to advanced topics on the one hand and genuine mastery of them on the other. A trajectory toward expertise comes built into typical multiyear cur- ricula for the various disciplines. The early years of education attend to the basics: in mathematics, arithmetic; in history and social studies, local, regional, and national story arcs, perhaps with an exciting visit to the Egyptians or the Romans; and so on. As students advance to middle school and high school, the courses and topics become more specialized Learning Agendas 37 and technical. It’s hoped that at least some students will begin to “think like a mathematician” or “think like a historian,” in ways well informed by particular subspecialties. One mark of this ambition appears in the prevalence of Advanced Placement courses toward the end of secondary school. The rigor of this enterprise suggests that the tires are firm and ready to take the learner a long way on the bicycle of knowledge. However, there are soft tires here—some tricky questions about the agenda of general education. One cautionary voice I ran across was Stephen Thornton, writing about how to find a place for internationalism in the social studies curriculum. Thornton observes that what serves gen- eral education well is quite a different question from what topics and procedures figure in active scholarship in the discipline: “In the almost certainly futile quest to bring all young people to world-class standards, many high school students are coerced into studying material in which they neither have an intrinsic interest nor see life relevance” (p. 85). Thornton here confronts where knowledge once learned might go, much as we have been doing around quadratic equations and other examples. He warns us that advanced studies often get lost in a schol- ar’s version of the discipline. Students may, for instance, learn about competing historical interpretations of a critical episode—let’s say the events leading up to World War I—but with little attention to draw- ing larger lessons from this that speak to other eras and current times. Contrast this with the French Revolution example given earlier, where the learner’s understanding of the revolution became a lens for under- standing many other things. The typical mathematics curriculum presents an especially clear example of a trajectory toward disciplinary expertise, with arithmetic leading into algebra and geometry and leading from there into preuni- versity calculus. This curriculum includes our exhibit A of quadratic equations, which hardly anyone ever uses. It also includes a number of other hardly ever used twists and turns of advanced algebra, and then calculus itself, an entire subject that hardly anyone ever uses. To generalize, multiyear curricula tend to be constructed as jour- neys toward expertise, with little effort to ask what topics within the 38 future wise discipline speak most powerfully and directly to the lives learners are likely to live. Moreover, when anyone questions whether this expertise serves learners well and suggests investing in different topics, there’s a common reaction: we’re sacrificing rigor! More life-relevant topics are to be disdained as soft. Although perhaps overwrought, concerns about rigor deserve an answer. We should recognize that the view suggested here treads on the toes of a host of committed educators. So let’s take a moment to articu- late carefully where the tires are soft and where they are not. I am suggesting that multiyear curricula in a discipline should be constructed to look outward from the discipline as much as inward toward its technicalities, as with the French Revolution example. For instance, mathematics education should spend more time on statistics and probability and less time on quadratic equations, simply because statistics and probability come up in people’s lives in important ways much more often than quadratic equations do—close encounters of the third kind. Similar shifts of balance make sense in almost any discipline, and the new balance can be just as rigorous as anyone might want. Here’s another way to put this. Basic education should build expert amateurism more than expertise. The expert amateur understands the basics and applies them confidently, correctly, and flexibly. The expert amateur in statistics and probability may not know anything about such advanced topics as multiple linear regression or factor analysis. But the expert amateur does have a sharp sense of what means and standard deviations signify, how they can describe a population well or not so well, how small samples can prove deceptive, what kinds of odds and returns make for a good bet or a poor bet, how pie charts and bar charts describe distributions, and so on. Aspects of statistics and prob- ability like these cover almost all everyday uses. If expert amateurism sounds like too meek an aspiration, it’s worth recognizing that expert amateurism serves very well most of what we do in life outside of our professions. In such areas as child rearing, fil- ing taxes, appreciating art, managing our own health care, or pursuing sports, at best we are expert amateurs and all too often not even that. Expert amateurism accomplishes a lot! Learning Agendas 39 Of course, I am not suggesting that we should get rid of the disci- plines or rigor in the disciplines. Statistics and probability, for instance, are plainly part of math and conceptually quite challenging even at the elementary level. Any one of the typical disciplines—history, mathe- matics, sciences, literature, and the various arts—includes examples and ideas that speak powerfully to the lives learners are likely to live, promising plenty of lifeworthy learning. Chapter 6 surveys how rich the disciplines are in lifeworthy learning. We should hunt out the many opportunities and make more of them. Furthermore, I am not suggesting that giving advanced students technical experience in disciplines is an utter waste of time. There is a value in the sample it affords. It draws many students in professional directions by giving them a chance to discover what they like and what they have a flair for. Moreover, we certainly should not deprive students of the opportunity to pursue technical disciplinary studies that fasci- nate them. There should always be some room in education to allow eager learners to follow their muse, and indeed to inspire eager learn- ers to discover their muse. However, all this can be done while largely organizing the curriculum for expert amateurism, looking outward to the world, not just inward toward scholarly mysteries. From Hierarchy to Network Let’s sum up: if knowledge is like a bicycle, why are so many typical top- ics not built to go somewhere? Three prominent educational agendas help to explain the mystery: achievement, information, and expertise. Each wants knowledge to go toward developing more literate, informed, and sophisticated participants in society. Unfortunately, all three have soft tires. As commonly pursued, the three agendas do not ask often enough about lifeworthy learning. Achievement focuses on performance without differentiating much between knowledge with clear and important lifeworthiness, like basic numeracy and literacy, and knowledge with questionable lifeworthiness. Information hon- ors only one kind of knowledge, slighting the importance of powerful 40 future wise concepts and general skills, cultivates it in ways that may not stick well, and overinvests in memory in an era of fingertip information. Expertise builds sophistication in the disciplines without considering which ideas speak most powerfully to the larger lives people live. To some extent, the soft tires of achievement, information, and expertise reflect a larger problem. The way traditional education works simply does not align very well with the buzzing blooming connectivity of today’s world. Of course, the connectivity trend has been building for a long time. It got its first big push in the Western world from Gutenberg and all that in the 1400s, and other boosts from efficient ocean transportation, the railroad, cheap and reliable surface mail, and, in the last century, the radio, the telephone, and the airplane. Now, with smart phones and the Internet plus increasing efficiencies on all fronts, it’s cresting and creating a phenomenon I’m tempted to call the small world paradox. Here it is in a sentence: The small world paradox: As our collective world gets smaller, the worlds we individually engage become more numerous and complex. We’re all familiar with the notion that contemporary computa- tional, communication, and transportation technologies are making our world smaller. However, this certainly does not make our world simpler—in fact, just the opposite. It’s much easier for each of us to engage a range of “worlds” far beyond anything available when I was growing up. Some worlds are online: Facebook, Wikipedia, gamer groups, digital lives like Second Life, special interest groups and forums, blogs, and so on. Some worlds are made of entertainment and information media, online or not: cinema and television from many nations, and of course books and magazines—or e-books and e-zines. Some worlds are in- person within easy reach through tourism, ecotours, cultural tours, ubiquitous international business travel, professional organizations and their annual meetings, foreign study, and on and on. So what does this say about the match between traditional educa- tion and today’s world? Look at the two diagrams that follow. The first, Learning Agendas 41 labeled hierarchy, characterizes traditional education. Of course, there’s a curriculum, that is, what’s deemed worth teaching and learning. The curriculum is organized in terms of disciplines, such as mathematics, history, and science. At least in the later grades, each discipline has a specialist teacher and offers its wisdom primarily through teacher and textbook. The teacher-plus-textbook serves a collection of students, with the important interactions occurring between students and teacher- plus-textbook, not so much among students. This hierarchical structure offers advantages of simplicity and top- down control to keep order. However, it does not mirror well the lives of learners and the life of knowledge in our complex globalized networked world. It does not respect what the Introduction to this book called the expanding universe of what’s worth learning. For an alternative already thriving in some schools, compare all this to the second diagram, labeled network. Again, curriculum appears at the top. Somehow, certain topics and themes have been deemed worth teaching and learning. Just how that Curriculum Discipline Discipline Discipline . . . Teacher Key information + source Student Student Student . . . Hierarchy 42 future wise Curriculum Discipline Discipline Discipline . . . Twenty-first- Teacher century Teacher Teacher skills Life and world Diverse problems and information opportunities sources Student Student Student . . . Network might happen with lifeworthiness in view is a matter explored in the rest of the book. Below curriculum, the diagram develops very differently. Disciplines, still important sources of insight, figure in interdisciplinary relation- ships with one another. Likewise, teachers representing different disci- plines interact richly. The key information source of the textbook has exploded to include the diversity of sources offered by contemporary digital and printing technology: web pages, reproductions of original documents, compelling images from the fine arts, a range of craft tradi- tions, newspaper photographs, and more. Textbooks too! A good text- book serves much better as part of the story than the whole story. Twenty-first-century skills and their kin also inform the learning process. Student-student interactions figure as richly as student-teacher interactions do. Finally, all this unfolds not just in an academic context but also in the context of life and world problems and opportunities. Now back to achievement, information, and expertise: remember that none of these agendas has to be left in the garage. The tires are only Learning Agendas 43 soft, not flat. Better versions with ample respect for lifeworthiness can roll along in a network version of education. However, the traditional hierarchical structure of education makes their conventional versions dominant. The hierarchical structure defines what it is to do well within that structure: achieve whatever teacher and textbook demand, regard- less of how it speaks to the larger world. Master and retain the infor- mation offered, even though our networked world has devalued much remembered information. Advance toward expertise in the defined dis- ciplines; never mind the power of expert amateurism toward adaptive engagement with a complex and varied world. The bottom line is hardly subtle: the traditional hierarchical struc- ture of education is a rather clumsy vehicle for engaging the rich infor- mation and communication affordances of the contemporary world and preparing today’s learners to thrive in that world. In contrast, a flexible network structure embraces the opportunities in a much more expansive and generative manner. Dancing Mitosis and Designing a Fish All of this may seem rather abstract, so let me wrap a story around it. A while ago, I enjoyed working with a number of teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The teachers were exploring various approaches to teaching content for understanding. I was continually impressed by the ingenuity of their ideas and the dedication they brought to their enter- prise. I learned a lot about what a measure of effort and vision could bring to youngsters’ learning. Two treatments of content in biology particularly caught my eye with a provocative juxtaposition: dancing mitosis and designing a fish. Dancing mitosis first: mitosis, you may remember, is the process of asexual cell division. When a cell divides, a number of complex transfor- mations occur to accomplish the split into two daughter cells, includ- ing duplicating the genetic material. Meiosis, sexual cell reproduction, which involves the exchange of genetic materials between two parent cells to yield four daughter cells, involves even more tangled maneuvers. Quite complicated enough, mitosis involves the following steps, each 44 future wise with its own pattern: interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telo- phase, and cytokinesis. How to help learners get the story straight? Dance offers an intrigu- ing approach. In dancing mitosis, the students adopt the roles of var- ious parts of the cell. They enact in small groups with their bodies the narrative of mitosis, playing out the reorganizations of cellular material that yield the daughter cells. A brief investigation on the Web revealed that there are canned ver- sions of this activity, where you can purchase a CD with the mitosis square dance, along with step-by-step instructions about the moves the students should make. The teacher who talked to me about dancing mitosis seemed to have a more creative approach: the students them- selves invented the choreography, taking their cue from the steps of mitosis as described in the text. Their active efforts to map the genetic catechism into bodily expression amount to a recoding of the process in a new medium. Such a representational somersault here, as in many other contexts of learning, amplifies memory and understanding. Now designing a fish: This unit also tackled a fundamental aspect of biological understanding: ecological fit. Each student had to create a profile of a fictitious fish suited to some ecological context. What was its morphology? What were its feeding habits? How was it adapted to survive and thrive? Each report required sketches, fish biographies, and arguments for the viability of the proposed organism. Students also were asked to position their fish in the biological taxonomy of fish in general, gaining some sense of the process and rationale of classifica- tion. I had the opportunity to thumb through several student write- ups. I was impressed by their enthusiasm and care. Many learners seem to approach this fantasy exercise with energetic commitment. Try This Compare dancing mitosis and designing a fish. Which do you think offers the more potentially lifeworthy learning? What lifeworthy learning specifically? Learning Agendas 45 I loved both units for the active inventive involvement of the learn- ers. Very likely, these experiences would build a measure of genuine understanding. I also cherished the central significance of both mito- sis and ecological fit to their home field of biology. However, I saw a complicated trade-off around lifeworthiness. I was less sure of mitosis as a learning target. Technically fundamental though it is, what would learners do with their insights? How would the details inform other aspects of basic biology, never mind reaching beyond the boundaries of the discipline in the classroom? We don’t need to banish mitosis from the curriculum, but acquaintance knowledge would suffice. Yet I was happy to see dance become part of the pedagogy. Not that everyone is going to become a dance enthusiast, but what the students learned about dance and its expressive significance and the craft of put- ting a dance together appeared to have far more potential for mapping widely into their later lives than mitosis itself. I couldn’t help but feel that the experience of dancing mitosis was more worthwhile for the dancing than for the mitosis. Designing a fish was just as creative and just as likely to cultivate understanding of its topic as dancing mitosis, but the learning tar- get of understanding ecological fit seemed more lifeworthy. A sense of adaptive alignment is a theme that comes up repeatedly. We read about species at risk, about programs to foster their recovery, about which plants and animals capitalize on ballooning urban and suburban contexts and which find them alien terrain. We hear about the risks of plant and animal species transported between continents to new environments, where lacking natural enemies they may explode into exponential growth and drive out native species. Sometimes we need to exercise responsibility on such fronts. When we travel, we may need to be careful about what fruits we carry from one continent to another, something customs laws commonly regulate. As householders, we may become aware that conventional lawns are resource-hungry ecological deserts. We may act or not, but at least we understand something of what is at stake. Let me round this out with one more story of mitosis. I have used the example from time to time in presentations, and a while ago a 46 future wise friend and colleague I don’t see very often happened to be in the audi- ence. He came up and announced, “Well, I remember the stages of mito- sis.” He ran through the list, using a mnemonic he had learned in high school. Very impressive! “However,” he continued wryly, “I have no idea what any of those words mean.” reimagining educaTion The conversation to have: Balancing the agendas of achievement, information, and expertise with lifeworthy learning. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning When you, I, or anyone else concerned with education looks from school to school and from nation to nation, we can hardly help but see some combination of three dominating agendas: achieve- ment, information, and expertise. If we’re worried about lifewor- thy learning, we can hardly help but worry about this. What’s lifeworthy learning is not a living question for these agendas. All three take it for granted that most of what they offer is lifewor- thy. More of a conversation is called for. To some extent, the dominance of these three agendas in con- ventional form reflects the traditional hierarchical structure of education—a curriculum built out of isolated disciplines deliv- ered by teachers and textbooks to students who interact mini- mally with one another. This structure inherently prioritizes doing well within the boundaries defined by the system. It does not respect the small world paradox: as our collective world gets smaller, the worlds we individually engage become more numer- ous and complex. It does not acknowledge the expanding uni- verse of what’s worth learning. In contrast, a network structure mirrors today’s multiplic- ity of engagements and serves today’s learners better: disciplines Learning Agendas 47 related to one another, teachers collaborating with one another, students interacting richly with one another, drawing on diverse information sources, addressing twenty-first-century skills, and engaging life and world problems and opportunities (look again at the two diagrams in this chapter). In particular classrooms, schools, school systems, states and nations, what might that net- work structure look like? Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning We all need to think more cautiously about the place of achieve- ment, information, and expertise. In typical form, these agendas drive choices far from ideal for lifeworthy learning. As part of the conversation, let’s acknowledge that the achievement agenda includes such unquestionably lifeworthy basics as the language arts and mathematics. However, it also includes considerable content unlikely ever to figure significantly in learners’ lives. As to the information agenda, let’s acknowledge that some information serves learners best at their mental fingertips. However, the information agenda overflows with information readily secured later as needed in our richly networked world. As to the expertise agenda, let’s acknowledge that, of course, diverse expertise serves adults in specialized roles well. However, the expertise agenda in basic education skews learning toward advanced technical content not helpful to most learners in the lives they are likely to live. Expert amateurism—robust flexible understanding of fundamentals—would serve leaners better. Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning The dancing mitosis and designing a fish examples revealed an active, constructive, and engaging teaching-learning process. But 48 future wise there’s a catch: in our conversation about what’s worth learning, we want to be careful about mixing up a good teaching-learning process with lifeworthiness. Not-so-lifeworthy content may well get taught effectively, even though it won’t do learners much good. Lifeworthy content may well get taught ineffectively and therefore not do learners much good. Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum All three agendas have their contributions to make. Let’s embrace that. But they also generally come with a dedicated blindness that neglects other considerations and results in a not very lifeworthy curriculum. Our conversation needs to put things back into rea- sonable balance. 3 Big Understandings Learning That Matters in Learners’ Lives “What’s something you understand really Well?” i asked. Someone in the back put up his hand and responded, “Ohm’s law!” Ohm’s law was formulated by nineteenth-century German physi- cist Georg Ohm, who, by the way, started his research as a high school teacher. The law models the behavior of electrical circuits, declaring that the current equals the voltage divided by the resistance. Given any two, you can calculate the third. Systematically applied, Ohm’s law allows figuring out what’s going on in quite complex circuits. I’ve worked with groups of teachers around teaching for under- standing for many years. To get the slippery idea of understanding into focus, I often invite people to name some areas they personally under- stand especially well and explain a little bit about them: Try This ● What’s something you understand really well? ● How did you come to understand it? ● How do you know you understand it? Your answers are likely to reveal something about what it means to you (and other people) to understand something. Most people, even 49 50 future wise academics, name nonacademic areas—gardening, child raising, cliff climbing, soccer—where perhaps they feel more confident of everyday richly experienced understanding. Occasionally people mention aca- demic areas: French grammar, the American Revolution, ecosystems. But usually not something so hard-core technical as Ohm’s law, so I was surprised that it came up. I took a moment to get the full story from the Ohm’s law man: How did you come to understand it? How do you know you understand it? Before college, the fellow explained, he had encountered Ohm’s law as part of basic physics instruction, business as usual with the exercises at the end of the chapter. During college he studied Ohm’s law again and heard from a roommate that the principles applied more broadly— for instance, to the throughput of heating ducts. There, the basic pat- tern of Ohm’s law plays out at least in rough form: the flow you get (the current in the heating duct) equals the push from fans (the voltage) divided by the friction in the ducts (the resistance). He was fascinated by the surprising breadth of what at first appeared to belong solely to the world of wires, batteries, and bulbs. The Ohm’s law man recounted how he made practical use of this later in life. Some rooms in his house were cold. Marshaling Ohm’s law, he reconfigured the ductwork in a way designed to improve the through- put substantially. “How do you know you understand it?” I had asked. His answer: “The heating system works better. I’m not cold anymore.” In the metaphor of the last chapter, this was knowledge like a bicy- cle: it went somewhere. Ohm’s law probably strikes most of us as a very narrow under- standing compared with the examples from chapter 1 of the French Revolution, climate change, and ideas about collaboration, listening, and leadership skills. However, remember the understanding cherished by the person who discussed the French Revolution. That wasn’t really just about the French Revolution but “how the lack of freedom, poverty, overtaxation, weak economies, the struggle between the Church and state, or social inequity has always being a reason to engage in war.” In the same way, the Ohm’s law man’s understanding wasn’t really just about Ohm’s law. Big Understandings 51 He saw how Ohm’s law stretches to a very general logic that applies, at least in rough form, to heating ducts and other systems as well: Outcome = Push Impediment The more push, the greater the outcome, but impediments reduce the outcome, so you divide. The same pattern applies to a number of phys- ical laws, for instance, Newton’s famous F = MA, rewritten as follows: Acceleration = Force Mass In other words, the more force on the object, the more acceleration, but the more massive the object, the more it responds sluggishly to the force (compare, for instance, pushing a child on a swing with pushing an adult on a swing), so you divide. To be sure, dividing might not be the right way to reflect the influence of the impediment, but it often is. It’s a good move to try. Books often express these laws in ways that obscure their simple logic. Consider, for instance, the classic F = MA. You may well ask yourself, “Well, but why should force equal mass times acceleration or any- thing like that?” F = MA makes much more sense in division form than multiplication form. Another law of physics with the same rough pattern is Newton’s law of gravitation, where force varies inversely with the square of the distance. There, it’s the distance that is the resistance, and you have to square it. Still another is the combined gas law relating pressure, volume, and temperature. The pressure in a vessel is pro- portional to the temperature that makes those gas molecules pushy, divided by volume, which reduces the effect by spreading it around. If these examples are uncomfortably technical, consider evocative metaphoric versions, such as this one: Corruption = Power Social and legal restraints 52 future wise This is a version of, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts abso- lutely.” Suppose there were no social and legal restraints. Dividing by zero, absolute power yields infinite corruption. Try This Make up your own playful “Ohm’s law” for something. Put it into the basic form that some kind of outcome equals some kind of push divided by some kind of impediment. Big Understandings Defined Such vigorous, flexible, adaptive, and notably proactive understand- ings connect well with the world we live in and the ways we live in it. They build up what chapter 2 called the expert amateurism of learners. These stretchy understandings deserve a name. Let’s keep it simple and just call them big understandings. The term big understandings projects the general spirit, but we can get a little more precise about it. Big understandings tend to be big in four ways: Big UndersTandings Big in insight: The understanding helps to reveal how our physi- cal, social, artistic, or other worlds work. Big in action: The understanding empowers us to take effective action professionally, socially, politically, or in other ways. Big in ethics: The understanding urges us toward more ethical, humane, caring mind-sets and conduct. Big in opportunity: The understanding is likely to come up in sig- nificant ways in varied circumstances. One might say, a little more playfully, “big in comeuppance.” Big Understandings 53 To put this another way, big understandings are big in the lives learners are likely to live. We’ve had examples before, for example, the French Revolution as a source of ideas about social unrest. Some more examples might help to sharpen the notion. We’ll start with democracy, including broad knowledge of where it came from, how it’s supposed to work, and how it does work. For a sam- pling of points, contemporary representative democracies function very differently from the original Greek democracy, which was much more participative. In nations new to democracy, democratic models often do not work well for specific reasons, such as factionalization into special interest political parties with religious and ethnic roots. On the positive side, considerable research supports what is called the democratic peace hypothesis: democratic nations almost never go to war with one another. Understanding democracy in today’s world involves much more than knowing a definition and having a naive ideological commitment. Of course, this brief paragraph offers only a rough sketch of what might go into a rich concept of democracy. Let’s imagine a well-developed understanding of democracy and look back at the criteria for a big understanding: ● Insight: The ideas around democracy offer insights about the state of various nations and peoples and the world as a whole. ● Action: The understanding empowers us to take action by sug- gesting issues to engage and paths to pursue (e.g., articulation of positions, protest, thoughtful voting). ● Ethics: The understanding encourages an ethical quest for effec- tive democratic forms and practices. ● Opportunity: There are endless opportunities to ponder democ- racy in today’s world: what’s happening in your own nation, what’s happening in others, democratic rhetoric without demo- cratic reality in some settings, quasi-democratic structures such as the United Nations, and so on. Overall, a rich conception of democracy scores pretty well as a big understanding. 54 future wise Energy, a second example, includes some appreciation of contempo- rary problems of energy, where energy comes from, where it goes, why conventional sources are limited, how renewable energy could save us, and what to do about that. Also part of the package might be elemen- tary technical concepts about energy because they are needed to make sense of the story: different forms of energy (potential, kinetic, chemi- cal, electrical), measures of energy (joules, ergs, calories, foot-pounds), the law of conservation of energy (implying we can’t get more energy out of a source than is already there), and other laws of thermodynam- ics (implying, among other things, that we can’t get nearly as much energy out of a source as it has). Let’s look at the criteria for big understandings again. The theme offers fundamental insights about how the world works; informs actions we can take, such as pursuing innovations and policies that support innovations; and fosters ethical attitudes toward energy use and energy resources. The contemporary world presents alarmingly many opportunities to think about energy. Risk, a third example, might include a basic practical understand- ing of probabilities as mentioned in chapter 1: the psychology of prob- ability of gains versus probability of losses (generally weighted much more heavily), systematic misperceptions of risk (e.g., people tend to be overanxious about rare but dramatic negative events), the realities of gambling, and so on. Looking at the criteria again, research shows that many people do not understand the basic mechanics of probability underlying risk, a shortfall that leads to dangerous choices. Accordingly, the theme offers genuine insights about how risk works and how people face it, sometimes wisely and sometimes not so wisely, and from that flows princi- ples for action, as well as ethical alerts about, for instance, irresponsibly foolish risk taking. Decision making in contexts of risk is big in opportunity: market investment, health decisions, insurance purchases, casino strategies, and more. Big understandings by definition have a lot of reach. Although schools in today’s complicated world of necessity have to educate for the unknown, whatever happens, themes like democracy, energy, and Big Understandings 55 risk are likely to be part of the lives learners live. So let’s look more closely at how big understandings might contribute to education. In the next section, we explore the diversity of big understandings and the character of their opposite: niche understandings. Then we examine more carefully how big understandings might contribute to the lives learners are likely to live. We consider the fundamental choice to foreground big understandings that educators face. We recognize how some familiar not very big understandings might be rescued by reframing them. And finally, we face one of the most challenging aspects of big understandings: there are far too many to cover in any reasonable sense. There is no ideal curriculum. Big and Not So Big I hope the themes of democracy, energy, and risk do not seem esoteric. They are meant to be commonplace, and a quick brainstorm could add many more just as commonplace. Promising big understandings are a dime a dozen. They include numerous themes already part of typical cur- ricula, as with democracy and energy. They also include themes not so commonly represented in typical curricula—for instance, risk, the prob- lematic but enticing notion of world citizenship, systems thinking, popu- lation dynamics, leadership, or how to engage works of art thoughtfully. Of course, big understandings are matters of degree. A candidate understanding might prove more or less big in insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Considerable opportunity is always important: If the understanding doesn’t come up, what’s the point? Although the examples of democracy, energy, and risk score well across the board on insight, action, and ethics, some worthwhile themes might offer only one or two. Also, big understandings are matters of context. A big understanding for one person may not be for another because of social setting, personality, or background. In other words, although we are striving to envision what’s lifewor- thy, there is no Holy Grail of an ideal universal curriculum—the same big understandings for everyone everywhere forever. 56 future wise While big understandings vary in bigness, some understandings are not very big at all. A useful name for the opposite of big understandings is niche understandings: understandings that may be very important in a particular technical context but don’t speak broadly to the lives learners are likely to live. Perhaps the most important point here is that understandings important in their disciplines are not necessarily big understandings. Consider, for example, quadratic equations from chapter 1 or mitosis from chapter 2. Try This For today’s world, rate quadratic equations for big in insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Then do the same for mitosis. By all means do your own scoring, but here are my comments: ● Insight: Certainly quadratic equations and mitosis contribute fundamentally to technical understandings of mathematics and biology. Also, bear in mind that they can be taught for under- standing in engaging ways, although often they are not. ● Action: Quadratic equations equip learners to solve certain rather narrow kinds of problems; mitosis doesn’t equip young learners to do much of anything. ● Ethics: Not much to be said here for either quadratic equations or mitosis. ● Opportunity: Quadratic equations and mitosis almost never come up for most people other than as acquaintance knowledge, where you need only a very rough sense of the topic to follow what someone is saying or writing. In general, this look toward big understandings is emphatically loose and broad, drawing attention to many topics that seem likely to speak powerfully to the lives learners are likely to live. What counts as a topic Big Understandings 57 is flexible; it can be a theme, concept, competency, general skill, or exemplar that speaks to a range of situations, as with the French Revolution example. Certainly big understandings are not always learned from books and teachers, with plenty to be found in the school of life as well. Nor should we think that big understandings stand separate from one another. They form clusters, networks, and hierarchies of understand- ing, as with the web of ideas around energy or democracy or risk. Given this wide embrace, unsurprisingly a number of other authors have looked toward an education in similar spirit. For a few examples (with more appearing later), P21 is the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a business-government-education-community coalition in the United States. The partnership encourages attention to themes such as creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, informa- tion literacy, and media literacy. The European Union framework of key competences foregrounds such themes as digital competence, learning to learn, and sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. Howard Gardner, writing about Five Minds for the Future, emphasizes the importance in the years to come of the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creative mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind. Chapter 9 explores these and other broad frameworks further. Seymour Papert in his Mindstorms encourages the learning of pow- erful ideas. In The End of Education, Neil Postman urges attention to grand narratives like Spaceship Earth (about the planet on which we all travel and its limited resources) or The Fallen Angel (about human beings in strength and weakness). Grand narratives tell us about who we are, supply strong and fruitful guidance regarding moral questions, and explain the mysteries of the world—criteria not so far from insight, action, and ethics. (I’ll say more about Postman’s approach in chapter 8.) Many state frameworks for education in the United States include big understandings. For instance, in Iowa social studies topics include how individuals act with peer groups, the role of scarcity and economic trade-offs, and the impact of advancing technologies on individuals and society among many others. Threshold concepts name another particularly broad perspective. According to Jan Meyer and Ray Land, threshold concepts have high 58 future wise payoff for learners. They elevate learners to a new level of understand- ing in a domain and open the way to further and deeper learning. For example, the authors name opportunity cost in economics, a notion mentioned in chapter 1. When you make a choice, the opportunity cost is the cost of not pursuing the path you left behind. For instance, tak- ing one job incurs the opportunity cost of missing out on the benefits of other jobs you might have chosen instead. Opportunity cost illumi- nates decision making in a range of situations obviously and not so obviously economic. Meyer and Land urge us to search out threshold concepts in any area of learning and take special care with their teaching—more bang for the buck! Numerous educators, mostly at the university level, have explored the ramifications in several article collections. There is one catch from the present standpoint: threshold concepts in a technical area may not score as big understandings because they do not speak powerfully beyond that area. However, it’s certainly worth asking whether a candidate big understanding has a threshold-like quality, lifting learners toward a broader vision of the way the world works. So despite the limiting agendas of achievement, information, and expertise discussed previously, there are dozens of frameworks reaching toward lifeworthy learning with big understandings. Later in the book, we examine more of these. Now the aim is simply to appreciate their presence and aim at big understandings as a kind of knowledge and knowing worth special attention. Big for Life What makes big understandings lifeworthy? What might today’s learn- ers get out of them later in life? To a degree, bigness in insight, action, ethics, and opportunity already answers this question. However, let’s not become too ardently utopian. Realistically, big understandings contribute only to certain moments in life. They hardly stand out when we follow our morning habits of getting up and getting dressed. They do not leap forward when we set our DVR to record a Big Understandings 59 favorite program, make a cup of coffee, bake a cake from a recipe, or commute to work, catching the usual bus at the usual time or navi- gating through the usual tangle of traffic. As we travel along the road of life, we take mostly familiar turns. Our lives run on what might be called recipe knowledge. Recipe knowledge is a wonderful thing. Knowing what to do, we can just get on with it. Moreover, recipes provide much more flexibil- ity than the word suggests. Consider a literal case of recipe knowledge: baking a cake from a familiar recipe. Even without knowing much about cooking, you can easily make adjustments by using associated knowledge, a little more sugar for extra sweetness, a little more time in the oven for extra crispness. Not only is recipe knowledge the bread and butter of everyday behavior, but at certain moments, rarely used recipes can prove critically important—the practice of cardiopulmonary resus- citation, for example. Recipes do not generally entail deep conceptual understanding, but they do involve richly nuanced patterns of behav- ior, doing just the right thing at the right time in the right way. This is valuable learning, and we certainly can’t assume that people have the recipe knowledge that they need. If recipe knowledge is the 90 percent solution that gets us through most of the day most of the time, where do big understandings come into play? We might call them the 10 percent solution. They help us think and act when the circumstances are more novel and familiar rec- ipes don’t work. Maybe it’s really only 8 percent, 5 percent, or 2 per- cent, but it’s a very important percent, supporting insights, actions, and ethical judgments as we navigate our way through the complications of public and private matters, and speaking to major life decisions and commitments. When we look at how big understandings contribute to our lives, we see at least three ways shading into one another: orientation, deliberation, and further learning. ● Big understandings help keep us oriented. Most often big understandings support quick intelligent orientation to situations. Let’s take the example of democracy sketched earlier. Suppose you are listening to 60 future wise a political speech urging the need for extensive monitoring of media to protect against terrorism. Immediately you recognize that issues of democratic practice are involved. This doesn’t necessarily tell you what your stance should be because there are trade-offs, but you recognize what’s at stake. When the politician says something like, “This is what we must do in the name of democracy,” you think, Well, but maybe this is what we should not do in the name of democracy. The orienting function of big understandings stands in contrast to two hazards: disorientation and misorientation. Disorientation means that you are confused about what’s going on, but at least you know your own puzzlement. Misorientation, the more insidious hazard, means that you are deluded about what’s going on—for instance, not even seeing an issue in the extensive monitoring of media to protect against terrorism, never mind which way you lean. ● Big understandings help us deliberate about situations. Sometimes orientation leads to deliberation, for instance, thinking carefully about government monitoring of the media, discussing the matter with friends and colleagues, and deciding on your personal stance. Many circumstances call on us not just to get oriented but to deliberate in ways that exercise big understandings, as in taking stock of one’s daily energy use or making a wise medical decision. Or for instance, suppose you’re going to Israel. Many people fear terrorism. In fact, the chances of getting injured in a traffic accident are far higher than the chances of getting injured in a terrorist attack. However, people worry about the terrorist attacks, not the traffic acci- dents. Understanding conceptually and taking to heart such psycho- logical tendencies helps one to get better calibrated about the actual risks of situations. ● Big understandings provide a foundation for further learning. Big understandings are tremendously useful for further learning. They offer not just grounding in acquaintance knowledge but also something more—a framework readily extended in detail and range. For example, if you already understand some basics about risk, it’s relatively easy to add further understandings about particular contexts of risk like terrorist threats or hurricane threats. Big Understandings 61 Further learning contrasts with once-and-for-all learning—learning it now and having it at your disposal forever but not extending it. The once-and-for-all approach inevitably means making much less of what is being learned. Learning, whether of big understandings or recipe knowledge or technical knowledge in the disciplines, ought to work like putting money in the bank for interest rather than burying it in your cellar just to preserve it. Relatedly, learning scientists John Bransford and Daniel Schwartz formulated a view of transfer of learning that emphasizes preparation for further learning: whatever immediate applications you find for what you’ve just learned, the most valuable returns on investment appear as you build on that foundation to learn more in diverse and sometimes unexpected contexts. The concept fits well here. Of course, orientation, deliberation, and further learning are pay- offs not just for big understandings but also for niche understandings pursued professionally or out of interest. Let’s forget the general pat- tern of Ohm’s law as explored earlier and focus for a moment on Ohm’s law only for electrical circuits. It helps students of electronics under- stand new circuits and design them with an analytical tool. It puts them in a position to learn about more exotic twists and turns of electrical circuitry, for instance, impedance, a concept like resistance that extends Ohm’s law to circuits with alternating currents and takes into account differences in phase between voltage and current amplitudes. If you are feeling that’s more than most of us need to know, that’s the point. Investment in a niche understanding earns its dividends of orientation, deliberation, and further learning only if you pursue that technical area. Investment in big understandings earns those dividends simply as we live our lives. Imagine an education where much of the curriculum addressed big understandings. Imagine a kind of learning that would bring those ideas alive and help them last, feeding lifelong learning. Imagine how much more prepared people would be to engage the unknown future, a complex and changing personal and public world, and learn their way into its intricacies and opportunities. Imagine a world where most 62 future wise individuals emerge from their basic education with a lively interest in and orientation to the basics of political participation, personal health care, the behavior of the economy, ecological responsibility, human social interaction, and a few dozen more concepts. What a different society we would have if the people you met on the street were as agile with such matters as the Ohm’s law man was with his generalized understanding of Ohm’s law. The Big Choice Our busy lives as human beings bring us to some big choices, such as whom to marry or partner up with, what profession to pursue, or where to live. Our busy lives as educators also bring us to some big choices, and maybe the biggest one of all is what to teach. In practical terms, this is usually an easy question because we go along with traditions, textbooks, packaged tests, and state frameworks. However, I’m hoping that the ideas in this book do a lot to unsettle that comfy position. I’m hoping that we all might face the big choice with courage and skepticism, even skepticism regarding our own familiar intuitions about what to teach. I’m hoping we can jump the grooves. That means leaving the pre- sumptions behind at least for a little while and seriously exercising our educational imaginations toward lifeworthy learning. We need to ask, for everything from democracy to quadratic equations and for many themes not typically taught at all, “Is this knowledge likely to go some- where in learners’ lives?” We need to ask, when this topic comes up, “Does it offer insight, does it inform action, and does it inspire ethics?” And as to opportunity, “Is this topic likely to come up often and impor- tantly rather than rarely and trivially?” Let’s acknowledge what the big choice means and what it does not. It certainly does not mean that young learners should be deprived of opportunities to learn about matters for which they have a particu- lar passion. By all means, let’s hold on to such opportunities. Neither does it mean that learners exploring professional directions should be Big Understandings 63 deprived of opportunities to look into the more technical side of an area of interest. What it does mean is that the heart and core of general education should foreground big understandings. Anything other than that is simply a disservice to today’s learners and the lives they are likely to live. To be sure, teachers, parents, school leaders, and others commonly raise a concern not so much about the principle as the practice: it’s all so locked in! Universities have certain expectations, SAT tests reflect certain expectations, and state and national curricula require particular topics. Maybe the topics are not so well chosen, but there they are. So what realistically can we do? “Give up” is not a very fruitful response. Instead, get started! The goal after all is not to rewrite the world of learning in an afternoon. Indeed, the goal is not so much authorial as editorial, not so much to create out of nothing as to add here, take out there, bump up here, downplay there, toward learning that’s likely to matter to the lives learners are likely to live. Such an endeavor need not be perfect or even anywhere near complete to do a great deal of good. Some perspective on the mission comes from voices that might seem surprising at first—pragmatic views of truth and justification as explored by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century philoso- phers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Israel Scheffler, in chapter 1 of his marvelous synthesis Worlds of Truth, underscores a fundamental idea: we cannot throw everything into question at once—nowhere near it. Our worldviews depend on an interplay of innumerable beliefs that support one another. When we get fruitfully skeptical, we are always beginning in the middle. It’s always about one or a few things, nowhere near everything. A vast scaffolding of other beliefs has to stay in place in order to make meaningful and operable the process of questioning a few. Rethinking what’s worth learning shares very much the same spirit. If we try to change everything at once, we would create chaos. So we start in the middle, where we are. We start by taking much of what’s there for granted. But not everything. We start to choose with new eyes. That is truly the big choice. 64 future wise The Big Save Maybe the hardest part of the big choice is what to do with an iconic topic like quadratic equations. On the one hand, we might have a dim view of its likely lifeworthiness. On the other, it’s so much a part of what’s expected that tossing it out feels awkward and risky. So what to do? A woman from Tasmania showed me one interesting way forward a while ago. I had been talking to a group at the Tasmanian Ministry of Education about what’s worth learning, including whether quadratic equations had a place. A woman in the back of the group stood up and said in essence, “Maybe as usually approached, quadratic equations don’t offer that much. But what about if we view them as ways of mod- eling growth?” She elaborated her point. Today’s world includes dozens of kinds of growth—in populations, markets, the spread of diseases, the prolif- eration of media. To go with growth, there is also loss, for instance, the systematic loss of biological species over the past decades and centuries. Growth and loss tend to follow mathematical patterns: linear, exponen- tial, quadratic, and others. If quadratic equations are not so significant as an exercise in pure algebra, they certainly have importance for under- standing patterns of growth and loss. Moreover, the woman in the ministry urged, this certainly is some- thing important to understand about our world. It connects with health. It connects with economic prosperity. It connects with ecologi- cal impoverishment. What if we reframed the study of quadratic equa- tions to be part of looking at models of growth and loss? It was a wonderful thought. Even more wonderful was the thought behind the thought: perhaps we could save many questionable icons of the conventional curriculum by reframing them to bring out their wider implications and applications, wider implications and applica- tions all too commonly neglected. Call it the big save: rescuing iconic topics of seemingly thin life- worthiness by reframing them. Let’s do it! However, as we apply the big Big Understandings 65 save, let’s recognize that it’s not going to give us a way to keep the old curriculum in place with a new justification. First, such reframing changes what’s learned. For instance, sup- pose we teach quadratic equations side by side with other ways of modeling growth and loss. Very likely this would involve less technical instruction about quadratic equations themselves and more big pic- ture attention. Students might end up not as nimble with the trick- ier algebraic manipulations, even as they see more sense in quadratic equations and use them more readily to model the world. In the quest for big understandings, that’s a good trade-off, but it is a trade-off nevertheless. For a second caution, we can’t expect to save every traditional icon by reframing. Some topics are so emphatically niche in character, so much a matter of technical expertise, that they resist reframing for broader scope. Finally, if we did find ways to reframe all the traditional icons for more meaning, it would not leave room for anything else. There are a great many ideas in today’s world of mathematics or biology or history that get little attention but shout for a place. If we succeed in saving everything we already have, we lose by neglecting what we do not. Smart Sampling Which would you like to hear first: the good news or the bad news? For once, you don’t have to choose, because the good news and the bad news are the same: there might be around ten thousand big understandings worth cultivating in the precollege years. (I made up that number. But I’ve scouted around enough to feel that whatever the actual number is, it’s overwhelmingly large.) The good news is that there is such richness to work with. Some might fear that when we filtered what we usually teach and what else we might teach through the standard of big understandings, we 66 future wise would end up with too little lifeworthy learning to fill our school days. Far from it. Which brings us to the bad news. It’s widely recognized that con- ventional education suffers from compulsive coverage. In the frantic race to touch on every anointed topic, depth becomes shallow and breadth becomes scattered. Some might hope that a focus on big understandings would solve this problem with the perfect fit. With big understandings in the foreground, we could teach them all, or at least the top 50 percent. Far from it! Never mind the niche understandings; there are way too many big understandings to teach in a meaningful manner. Even the big understandings can’t be covered. We need to make radical choices. Fortunately, at least one group of educators has come to some genuine insights about how to handle the problem of superabundance: teachers of literature. We can call their strategy smart sampling. Any teacher of literature recognizes that a particular era or style contains far too many fine exemplars to cover. The teaching of liter- ature always involves superselectivity. This year, we won’t read all of Shakespeare’s plays, but maybe two or three. This year, we won’t skim the cream of twentieth-century American novels, because even that cream would number in the thousands. We’ll focus on a very few, per- haps ten. It is not just individual teachers who cope with the superabundance of good literature. Many frameworks guiding literary instruction do so as well. A survey of examples from various parts of the world reveals a strong pattern of practice. Such frameworks generally do not demand specific readings for various grades and groups. Instead, they offer lists of good prospects, inviting teachers to choose according to their stu- dents and their passions. These frameworks also encourage choices outside the lists, choices responsive to interest and timeliness. Quality is a criterion, but also diversity of styles, genres, and cultural and political voices. Overall this pattern of practice nurtured by teachers of literature amounts to an impressive strategy for tackling superabundance. Here is an effort to summarize what’s going on with smart sam- pling and generalize it in a way pertinent beyond literary studies: Big Understandings 67 smarT sampling Richness of Individual Choices ● Exemplary—works, examples, concepts, skills exemplary of their kind ● Accessible and resonant—accessibly meaningful, relevant, and thought provoking for the learners and teachers in question ● The particular as a home for the general—choices that are valuable not only in themselves but for the ways they illustrate overar- ching and cross-cutting themes Range within the Ensemble ● Types, genres—various types and genres represented ● Close to home, far away—from the familiar and standard to the more unusual ● Different perspectives—voices, viewpoints, mind-sets So let’s ask ourselves whether something in the same spirit might serve other disciplines as well. History is another discipline beleaguered by the problem of far too much to address. Rather than the story of everything for a particular place or period, perhaps smart sampling would offer a better approach. Perhaps an in-depth look at a small set of episodes from various periods, chosen to be representative and nota- ble, would give learners more of a sense of what got discovered and why, who won and why, or what new industries or ideas developed and why. Some sciences obviously suffer from very much the same problem of superabundance. Anthropology thrives on close looks at particular cultures and times, but which cultures and times? One aspect of biol- ogy involves close looks at the physical and behavioral adaptations of various organisms, but which organisms? At first glance, the physical sciences seem to suffer less from superabundance of big understandings. There, the typical curriculum 68 future wise maintains a pretense of covering all the fundamentals. But I suggest that this is something of a trick. Learning gets organized around impor- tant explanatory theories, and there are far fewer of these than particu- lar applications. However, naked theories are almost meaningless. They take on meaning in the context of the rich and important cases they explain. They take on more meaning when those cases are diverse, exer- cising the ins and outs of the theory in question. So, which cases? Let’s face it: superabundance is a reality for virtually any discipline, even with a determined focus on big understandings. We all need to let go of the idea, as teachers of literature did long ago, that we can cover all of the important ideas, examples, and works. Smart sampling, not quick coverage, is the trick we need. If sometimes we think it’s not, that’s only because we are lulled into the notion of doing it all or most of it by choices already made in textbooks and curriculum frameworks, and choices often not very well made. Superabundance is not going to shrink down to something tractable all by itself. It’s up to us whether we sample smart. reimagining edUcaTion The conversation to have: Big understandings for the learners and context. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning Lifeworthy learning is a nice phrase! Anyone who worries about education—you, me, teachers, parents, school leaders, students, political figures concerned with education—might think that sounds attractive. But what is it? Let’s frame it this way: in large part, big understandings are the building blocks of lifeworthy learning. They are big in insight, big in action, big in ethics, and big in opportunity and therefore big in the lives learners are likely to live. These four qualities can guide our conversation about what to teach and what to learn. How do big understandings pay off in people’s lives? Big understandings help people to (1) keep oriented as they encounter Big Understandings 69 the world directly or through media, (2) deliberate about situ- ations toward making decisions and constructing understand- ings, and (3) pursue further learning from the platform of what they know and understand so far. Notice the contrast with niche understandings. These may figure centrally in particular disciplines. However, they look inward to the mysteries of those disciplines more than outward from those disciplines to inform our lives. The conversation needs to include ways to stop these from clogging the curriculum. Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning Now we have a problem. Setting niche understandings aside, there are still far too many big understandings to teach in basic education or even in a lifetime. But there’s hope. One group of educators has conceived a way of thinking about this problem out of necessity. Smart sampling, a strategy drawn from literary studies, offers an approach: sampling for richness of particular choices (e.g., exemplary works, concepts; accessible and resonant for the learners in question; the particular as a home for the gen- eral) and for range within the ensemble (various types and genres; close to home, far away; different voices, viewpoints, mind-sets). Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning Big understandings do not guarantee good teaching and learn- ing. But they do create many ready opportunities for it, since they connect so richly to so many facets of life. Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum Big understandings and smart sampling apply at any level, from building a lesson to a unit to a course to an entire multiyear curricu- lum. Such conversations look toward visions of curricular structure. 4 Big Questions Learning beyond What’s Settled and Known “Why you have so much cargo?” The question came from Yali, a New Guinean speaking many years ago to Jared Diamond, the 1998 Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, mentioned already in chapter 2. Yali’s question became the fundamental driving query for the book. In the New Guinean ver-nacular, cargo refers to the wealth of goods so evident in the life of the whites who came to New Guinea. “Why you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little?” Yali wanted to know. Why were Eurasians so tremendously successful almost everywhere, at least by the measure of possessions? The question arose in the most natural manner from Yali’s expe- rience of the world and captivated Jared Diamond. Right away, he dis- missed all thoughts of Eurasian intrinsic cultural superiority, greatly admiring New Guineans for their ingenuity and their lifeways. He sought other explanations for why the populations of Europe and Asia more than any other group have played such a key role in world devel- opment and amassed so much “cargo.” Diamond calls Yali’s question in general form the biggest question of history. The quality of Yali’s question, not so much Diamond’s answer, is our focus here. Nonetheless, to relieve your curiosity in case you have not read the book (and I certainly recommend it), Diamond offers an extended explanation looking not to mere chance or technological 71 72 future wise flair but to certain advantages of European and Asian geography and ecology, advantages that supported wave after wave of large-scale devel- opment. A variety of plants lending themselves to storable food crops and several animals inviting domestication, markedly more so than in other parts of the world, allowed populations to establish villages that coalesced into large-scale city-states. The roughly East-West rather than North-South sprawl of Eurasia made it easy for agricultural and animal husbandry innovations to spread across similar climate zones. Although there is more to the story, these few words may give a sense of how a historical trend could emerge from the gradual cumulative influ- ence of conveniences of geography and ecology. Unsurprisingly, some have taken issue with Diamond’s account, but it certainly stands as a thoughtful and imaginative effort to answer a big question. Yali’s big question is one of many. Repeatedly, experience and anec- dote celebrate the power of questions. One of the best-known exam- ples, and I cannot resist repeating it here, looks to a personal story from another prizewinner, Isidor Rabi, who received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1944. He explained how most mothers in his circle asked their children when they got home from school, “Did you learn any- thing today?” But Rabi’s mother would ask him, “Izzy, did you ask a good question today?” Big Questions Defined Yali’s question, “Why you have so much cargo?” is a powerful one that turns our minds to something fundamental about the human condi- tion. Jared Diamond’s answer to this question certainly bristles with big understandings about social development, but those ideas would never have surfaced were it not for Yali’s question. The question takes us somewhere important. The previous chapter celebrated big understandings, underscored their lifeworthy character, and urged their importance in educating for the unknown. Remember the bicycle metaphor: big understandings are ready to go somewhere, unlike much of the content we ask students Big Questions 73 to learn. Big questions stand beside big understandings. They too are ready to go somewhere. They too are lifeworthy, big in the lives learners are likely to live. There certainly is no lack of big questions addressing the funda- mentals of the universe and our place in it. Try This Recall a recent experience that stands out for you, and draw from it a couple of big questions. The big questions are not hard to find. We simply need to pull back and take a panoramic look at almost anything. Big questions glit- ter in the sunlight of our curiosity. Here are a few in no particular order: ● Where do we come from? This could be addressed from an evolu- tionary perspective, from a religious viewpoint, from the perspec- tive of social development, with a mythological turn, and more. ● In the same spirit, where did the universe come from, and where is it going? ● And where are we going? This asks for our best sense of what’s to come: our speculations, our predictions, indeed our aspirations, because they figure in taking us there. ● What are the forces behind peace and war, and how can we manage them better? ● How can we tackle fundamental global problems such as poverty and overuse of natural resources? Such a list would grow very long very quickly with a little more attention, and that’s a good thing. Many big questions could inspire educating for the unknown. The frequent flat quality of many students’ learning experiences can be blamed in part on the thin presence of big questions in the cur- riculum. Students certainly do not suffer from a question deficit per se. 74 future wise For instance, Ron Ritchhart conducted classroom observations, logging teacher questions in conventional classrooms and classrooms empha- sizing thinking with content. More than a question per minute was typ- ical, but what kinds of questions? Ritchhart categorized the questions in five ways. Review questions reviewed knowledge and information and procedural questions directed the work of the class, while ques- tions in the other three categories fostered learners’ exploration and understanding in various ways. In the conventional classrooms, review and procedural questions dominated, a pattern strongly reversed in the classrooms that emphasized thinking with content. Big questions address particular themes about humanity, our world, and our universe. There are also very general big questions that find significance in almost any context. The child’s why is prelude to the why of the scientist, artist, or historian. Likewise, the child’s how looks toward the engineer or politician or manufacturer. The broadly exploratory question what’s there touches everything from the interiors of human cells to the interiors of black holes. Our basic interrogatives of why, what, where, when, how, whether, and the dated but important whither apply to the most mundane everyday circumstances—sometimes simple calls for information but sometimes the largest dimensions of our lives. Later we’ll see how such questions fall nicely into bundles that support inquiry and problem solving. For now, it’s enough to recognize the power behind their everyday presence. While we are listing typical question words like why and how, let’s also recognize that we often ask questions without using such words. For instance, sentences to complete (e.g., “The first step to take is . . .”) or headings under which to list ideas (e.g., the classic “What I know, what I want to know”) in effect ask questions. Questions basically call for some kind of filling in, commonly but not always with an interrog- ative grammatical form. So what makes big questions big? Like big understandings, big questions are big in offering insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Yali’s question, Diamond’s answer to it, and our own further thoughts about it give us an enlightening perspective on the world today, help us think about social structures appropriate to our era, and foster our Big Questions 75 sense of ethical engagement with our world and its peoples. These are all themes that easily find places in the rhythm of our lives again and again. For the most part, educators tend to think of questions, powerful or not, as part of method. Questions belong to method and answers belong to content. Teachers ask questions to check whether students know the answers, and, in inquiry-oriented teaching and learning, teachers ask questions toward students’ finding out or figuring out the answers, sometimes urging students to formulate some of the ques- tions themselves. All of this is fine as far as it goes, but questions remain emphatically a matter of method. The idea of big questions changes this game. Questions are content too, with their own lifeworthy flavor. To know a big question, keep it alive in your mind, and develop skill in asking it is to have a certain kind of passion and power toward navigating the world. Although we are deeply conditioned to think of what we learn as answers, big questions are something worth learning. Wondering At and Wondering About Yali’s question is certainly something to wonder about. How indeed did the people of Eurasia come to dominate today’s world? It’s a big puzzle inviting deep inquiry, the sort of inquiry Jared Diamond provided in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Any of us might be intellectually curious about Yali’s question, but clearly the question meant more to Yali than that. He saw these foreigners with their enormous wealth, elaborate tech- nological devices, and imposing means of transportation. Yali found this amazing and dismaying in comparison with the modest means of his own people. He found the position of these foreigners in the world something not just to wonder about but to wonder at. Most of us would have difficulty wondering at the dominance of Eurasian culture with anything like the intensity that Yali must have felt. Most readers of this book (I hope not all) are likely to be thoroughly a part of that culture and take it for granted. We can feel some intellectual curiosity for Yali’s question because it marks such a large-scale 76 future wise feature of our world, but only with a deliberate act of perspective taking can we find something truly amazing to wonder at. Recalling the famil- iar saying that fish do not know anything about water, imagine what a leap of perspective taking it would take for a smart fish to wonder at water, which, after all, is a remarkable substance. Even for us nonfish, so involved with water in various ways as we are, it’s not easy for us to get amazed about that versatile and ubiquitous liquid. Many of the things we might wonder about are emphatically things to wonder at, although recognizing the wondrous side of them may require making the familiar strange. Look again at the list of questions mentioned earlier. “Where do we come from?” This wonder about invites us to wonder at the odd, elaborate, smart, adaptive organisms we are rather than just take ourselves for granted, and so ask how such crea- tures could have emerged from the hodgepodge of the biosphere. Or, “What are the forces behind peace and war?” One might take war as a regrettable dark side of the human condition, but we would do better to wonder at this dismayingly destructive phenomenon that has haunted humanity since the emergence of large-scale city-states five thousand or so years ago and wonder about features of the modern globalized world that might or might not dull its edge. Such examples also tell us something about the ingredients of won- dering at. What we wonder at surprises, impresses, mystifies, or amazes in a sustained way. Teachers can bring such characteristics forward through artful and impassioned framing. Learners can discover such characteristics through open speculative engagement with a topic before they get involved in the particulars. The characteristics are emotional, to be sure, but notice that they are not only emotional. To discern something surprising, impressive, mystifying, or amazing is to recognize an important characteristic of it cognitively, not just to surf on its charisma. The darker side of our world has room for wonder also. We may wonder at the “tyger tyger burning bright,” the persistence of endless human weaknesses despite or even because of our supposedly sophisti- cated civilization, the deeply evil nature of figures like Stalin and Hitler, the doomsday threat of nuclear Armageddon, the menace of the Big One along major fault lines in the Earth’s crust, or the menace of war along major fault lines of nationality, ethnicity, and religion. Big Questions 77 Of course, not all wondering gets energy from wondering at things. There are plenty of pragmatic everyday reasons to wonder about things, such as how to get one’s income tax returns filed on time. Granting that, big questions certainly thrive on the supercharged fuel of wondering at. Wondering about needs the company of wondering at. Big ques- tions give us matters to wonder about, but inquiry, especially if overly academic, can become a numbing climb up a long hill. I am reminded of the children’s song, “The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see.” And what did he see? “The other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, was all that he did see.” Not much excitement there! Big questions can be insightfully analytical but not very inspira- tional unless backed by a sense of wonder. Suppose we ask, “What are the three causes of the Industrial Revolution?” Logically this is certainly a big question—the Industrial Revolution was an amazing game changer for the way of the world—but the very form of the question undermines wondering at. Asking for the three causes suggests that what’s wanted is not so much free-flowing inquiry as a bottled answer. Try This How could you rephrase the question, “What are the three causes of the Industrial Revolution?” for more of a sense of wonder? We could do a little better by asking, “What do you think might have been the causes of the Industrial Revolution?” This is more invi- tational but not inspirational. Or perhaps we could get some of that wondering at into the question by asking a longer version like this: “What led to the Industrial Revolution occurring when and where it did, when around the world and for thousands of years numerous civilizations had displayed impressive sophistication, well-developed economic systems, significant science, and even quite a range of clever gadgetry?” 78 future wise Thus, wondering at provides us with an inspiration and a compass for wondering about the unknown. After all, the unknown has no top and no bottom, no border to the North, South, West, or East. And to be frank, much of it is not that interesting, just more of the same, as with the bear climbing over the mountain. Not everything is wondrous. The wondrous helps us to direct our attention and give the searchlights of our big questions places on which to shine. This seems to be the mind-set that Isidor Rabi’s mother cultivated whenever she inquired whether he had asked a good question that day. Moreover, good questions grounded in a sense of wonder can come from anyone, not just academics. Remember that the so-much-cargo question came from Yali, not a scholar, not even a person deeply edu- cated, but simply someone who saw a huge and troubling enigma in the world and articulated it in a commonsense way. A taste for wonder cannot be taken for granted. Indeed, over time students in typical schools stand at some risk of losing their sense of wonder. This looks to be part of a widescale and well-documented pat- tern in student motivation. Educational researchers have investigated patterns of student motivation as learners advance from kindergarten and first grade on through primary and secondary education. Placed on a graph, the level of motivation forms an almost perfect straight line sloping down. Year after year, learners on average display somewhat less motivation than the year before. Certainly there are multiple reasons for this troubling phenomenon, but one of them likely is the erosion of the child’s initial disposition to wonder through encounters with tide after tide of information and questions like, “What are the three causes of the Industrial Revolution?” A step in the right direction is more attention to inquiry-ori- ented learning, using such paradigms as problem-based learning, project-based learning, case-based learning, studio learning, or commu- nity service learning. Even so, inquiry-oriented learning can easily spend almost all its time wondering about and not enough time energizing the process with wondering at. When learners find questions compel- ling, the questions tend to carry an aura of wondering at, energizing their wondering about. Big Questions 79 Of course, finding the wondrous side of things is not always an everyday matter. Whereas almost anyone can wonder at the night sky or the glorious sprawl of a sunset or the sudden disappearance of the dino- saurs, it takes a backdrop of knowledge and understanding to wonder at the twisty acrobatics of quantum physics or the pensive eloquence of a Shakespearean soliloquy. Ideally, as knowledge and understanding expand into present horizons, they continuously create new horizons to wonder at and wonder about. However, giving people information and ideas does not necessar- ily accomplish this unless the process keeps the wonder alive. Indeed, research from a couple of decades ago might shake our sense of the balance between questions and answers in the educational enterprise. Cognitive scientists and educators Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter reported a study in which they asked schoolchildren to gener- ate questions about a topic being learned and also to rank the questions collectively for interest and importance. The inspiring result for won- dering at and wondering about was that the children were quite good at this. The unsettling result came from a comparison between classes that generated the questions before and after studying a topic. The questions produced before studying the topic turned out to be much deeper and more exciting. It seemed that the formal study of the topic had quenched students’ sense of its mystery. Back to the bicycle metaphor: big questions are like a bicycle; they take us somewhere. They articulate what we are wondering about and so help us to inquire. But we still have to steer and pedal the bicycle; we need to have a sense of direction and want to get there. This is what wondering at can give to learners. As artful educators, we need to help learners find in topics the qualities of surprise, paradox, virtuosity, drama, humor, even dismay. Socratic Questions Even a brief look at big questions could hardly neglect the wellspring of them all: Socratic questions and the art of Socratic questioning. There’s 80 future wise a paradox here, though: the Socratic approach might be considered at the same time one of the most and least powerful ways of turning ques- tions to the service of learning. Why the paradox? A view of that had best come after a brief refresher on the approach itself. It’s hard to do justice to the richness of Socratic questioning in a couple of paragraphs, but here’s the general idea. An artful process of questioning learners and eliciting their questions on a topic can help them not only to understand the topic more deeply but also to become more critical and creative thinkers about it and other topics. Typical Socratic questions contrast with requests for information and stock explanations. They pose problems, press for evidence, and challenge facile conclusions. The source for Socratic questioning is the dialogues of the Athenian philosopher Plato, from the beginning of the fourth century BCE, in which Plato portrays his mentor Socrates in discussion with others. For instance, in the dialogue Meno, Socrates discusses the nature of virtue with Meno, a visitor to Athens from Thessaly. In one well-known epi- sode, Socrates demonstrates to Meno how we already have the basis for true knowledge: certain knowledge is innate; we “remember” it in a sense if we draw on our resources through reasoning. He does this by a series of questions that lead one of Meno’s uneducated slave boys to make a sophisticated mathematical inference about what kind of square would have twice the area of a given square. (The answer is that a square con- structed on the diagonal of the given square will have twice the area.) Having convinced the slave boy that he was wrong in his initial ideas through a series of clever questions, Socrates sets out to guide the slave boy to true knowledge with the following comment to Meno: “Mark now the further development. I shall only ask him [the slave boy], and not teach him, and he shall share the enquiry with me: and do you watch and see if you find me telling or explaining anything to him, instead of eliciting his opinion. Tell me, boy, is not this a square of four feet which I have drawn?” The idea is to extend that square to one with an area of eight feet, its side a diagonal of the first square. Socrates proceeds through a sequence of questions accompanied by sketches that invite the slave boy to affirm Big Questions 81 the steps. Thus, the slave boy not only learns a recipe for doubling the area of a square but also recognizes the inevitable logic of the construc- tion and the misconceptions behind his own initial ideas. We’ll return to this snippet in a minute. First, it’s worth recognizing several kinds of Socratic questions that nudge learners toward under- standing. Questions in a broadly Socratic style can call for clarification: “Can you say a little more about what you mean?” “Can you give me an example?” “How would you compare and contrast these two ideas?” Socratic questions can seek evidence: “What makes you say that?” “What is your evidence?” Socratic questions can reach for other per- spectives: “How might someone on the other side of the case look at that?” “What would a person from this or that nation or ethnic group or profession think about that?” Socratic questions can challenge gen- eralizations: “Can you think of a counterexample?” “What do you think of this case, which doesn’t seem to fit?” Even this brief sketch may be enough to guide trying out Socratic questioning in a convenient setting with a convenient topic. There are many online and in-print resources for those who would develop the craft. For now, I turn back to the puzzling suggestion that Socratic questioning is one of the most powerful and least powerful ways of using questions for learning. Anyone with classroom experience will recognize that Socratic questioning poses very practical concerns for time management and large classes. The Socratic process certainly gobbles time and benefits from smaller rather than larger groups. But these are not the problems I have in mind, nor are they really such problematic problems. As to the time, Socratic teaching can be used selectively; no one suggests that it serve all the time for everything. As to larger groups, the process at least can be modeled with large groups, leading to student-led smaller groups, and that’s just one approach. The challenges I worry about are a little different. Here’s the heart of it: Socratic questioning is very powerful when done well but rather difficult to do well on a consistent basis. One reason is simply the real-time character of Socratic teaching. It’s a kind of improvisational theater. Socratic teachers make up many 82 future wise of their questions as they go along, responding to the ideas emerging from the learners. Socratic teaching is the heartbeat of the well-known Philosophy for Children approach. Teachers practicing the approach guide children in probing conversations in the Socratic style, address- ing themes like logic, viewpoints, truth testing, law, morals, and science. The program shows impressive results from good practitioners, and yet I recall its founder, Matthew Lipman, grumbling about the difficul- ties teachers experience developing a reasonable level of skill. Some, he averred, just never get there. Leading learners too much is a particular pitfall, one into which Socrates, as portrayed by Plato, arguably falls. In the Meno, Socrates pretty much tells the slave boy how to get a square with double the area, phrasing statements in the form of questions that ask for affir- mation. It’s reasonable to take the slave boy’s assents as honest if you follow the logic of the dialogue, which is quite compelling. However, just because the slave boy gives the high sign to each step does not mean that he arrives at an integrated conception of the reasoning applicable to anything else. Never does the slave boy have to find his own way. It’s not at all clear that the slave boy’s exchange with Socrates would equip him to think in a similar way about other even slightly different situations. Another challenge concerns the shift from questions as a teaching method to questions as themselves content appropriated by the learn- ers, a theme of this chapter. It’s all too easy for Socratic questioners to perpetuate their dominant role, continuing to ask good questions and draw out increasingly thoughtful answers without ever turning over some of the conversation to the learners. Lacking this shift of balance, the learners may develop insight concerning the topic without action around the questions and process of questioning. I hope that no one will take this as dismissing Socratic teaching, at its best a wonderful way of fostering learning. Just bear in mind that big questions can serve learning in other ways wholly in keeping with the Socratic goals of clarifying, seeking evidence, challenging perspectives, and so on, yet without requiring quite the tricky moment-to-moment improvisation. Ideas along these lines follow. Big Questions 83 Living Questions Socratic dialogues feature a rapid give-and-take of questions, but also thrive on what we might call living questions—themes of inquiry that give the conversations focus and significance. In the case of Plato’s Meno, the living question concerns the nature of virtue. The notion of a living question is an adaptation from a much more recent philosopher, William James, who in a well-known essay, “The Will to Believe,” drew a distinction between live and dead hypotheses. Live hypotheses are possibilities a person finds genuinely at issue for himself or herself and worth engaging. For instance, in a religious con- text, for an ardent believer or an ardent atheist, the existence of God would not be a live hypothesis because it’s settled one way or another. However, people on the fence, struggling with their faith or hoping to find a faith, see here a live hypothesis—or a living question. In formal educational settings, we can’t hope that every learner will find every big question a living question, but we can choose ques- tions that stand a good chance of becoming living questions for most of the participants. And we can up the odds by cultivating wondering at and involving the learners in formulating some of the questions. Furthermore, let’s recognize that packaging is important. Plato’s puz- zle about virtue sounds a little quaint today, as quaint as the word virtue itself, but what it asks is as relevant as ever. Educators have found many ways to keep living questions in the foreground. Here are four by way of illustration. One favorite taps into the teaching for understanding approach discussed further in the next chapter. It’s the concept of throughlines. A throughline is a broad theme of inquiry, typically stated as a question, that learners explore over a considerable period. Units of instruction can have several throughlines revisited repeatedly as learners acquire more content and reflect on their understandings. Throughlines typically stay visible on the wall or in handouts or notebooks so that learners can revisit them readily. An apt example comes from Lois Hetland, who played a key role in the original development of teaching for understanding. Indeed, she gave throughlines their name, drawing on a concept concerning drama 84 future wise from Stanislavski, for whom throughlines meant central themes threading through the entire course of a play. Lois was teaching about colonial America in a way that integrated multiple humanistic disciplines. She used as touchstones several throughlines persisting throughout the year. Some, for instance, addressed how the land figured in colonial history: ● How do people think about the land? ● How do people change the land? ● How does land shape human culture? Other throughlines concerned the tricky nature of historical truth: ● How do we find out the truth about things that happened long ago or far away? ● How do we see through bias in sources? A concept in similar spirit comes from the Coalition of Essential Schools, a network of progressive schools founded by Theodore Sizer. Participants in the network and others who have picked up the para- digm speak of essential questions. The website of the Essential Schools organization defines essential questions in this way: Curriculum and courses should be organized not around answers but around big ideas—questions and problems to which content represents answers. Essential questions on every level—from the most encompassing schoolwide questions to the specific question posed in a particular unit of a particular course—should shape the way students learn to think critically for themselves. Essential questions often address broad overarching themes. For instance, elsewhere on the Essential Schools site we find these ques- tions, versions of which have served as a learning organizer at Central Park East Secondary School in New York City: ● From whose viewpoint are we seeing or reading or hearing? From what angle or perspective? Big Questions 85 ● How do we know when we know? What’s the evidence, and how reliable is it? ● How are things, events, or people connected to each other? What is the cause, and what is the effect? How do they fit together? ● What’s new and what’s old? Have we run across this idea before? ● So what? Why does it matter? What does it all mean? Essential questions can also take more focused form specific to the content of particular units. The following appear on the website for a botany unit: ● Do stems of germinating seedlings always grow upwards and roots downwards? Devise an experiment to determine the answer. (What is tropism?) ● What environmental factor are the seedlings responding to? How does the plant sense this factor? (Preselected reference material would be available on reserve.) ● Is this the only factor that the seedling stems respond to? Devise experiments to determine a valid answer to this question. ● What part of the stem is receiving the stimulus? What part of the stem is responding to the stimulus? Do roots respond to this stimulus? My own leaning is that these specialized questions focus the teach- ing and learning well, but they miss the charisma of more general ques- tions. I’d be inclined to put an overarching question at the top of the list to evoke wondering at, perhaps something like this: ● Plants aren’t animals; they lack sensory systems. How can their parts “know” which way to grow? A third example of living questions comes from Israeli educator and innovator Yoram Harpaz, the originator of a paradigm for teach- ing, learning, and schools called the community of thinking. In such communities, fertile questions drive the learning process. These questions initially come from the teacher and, as the learners gain experience, from them as well. An ideal fertile question is open, undermining, rich, 86 future wise connected, loaded, and practical, all at the same time, a high hurdle to be sure but not every question need be perfect. For instance, an open question lacks a single conclusive answer. Especially interesting are questions open in principle, not just because the answers have not been discovered yet. Plato’s question about the nature of virtue is certainly an open one, not likely to be settled for all time by any empirical or analytical process we can imagine. However, this does not mean that it is an utterly intractable question. Some view- points afford more insight than others do, the openness of the ques- tion in part reflecting changeable conceptions of virtue across societies and time. Yali’s question also is open. To be sure, Jared Diamond has offered his insightful and provocative take, but some have contested it, and at any rate, such a broad, bold question certainly invites other perspectives. To touch on one more criterion, a fertile question also is undermin- ing. In the Platonic tradition, an undermining question shakes initial comfortable explanations and opens the way toward deeper inquiry. Harpaz argues that schools need to make the strange familiar as they introduce learners to new knowledge but also make the familiar strange, upsetting and challenging naive conceptions and glib answers, a delicate process that needs to stop short of provoking outright defensiveness. Here are some sample fertile questions drawn from Community of Thinking teachers in Israel, Australia, and New Zealand: ● Is a “New Middle East” possible? (Geography) ● The human genome project: blessing or curse? (Biology) ● How did it happen that the generation that fought World War I (“the war to end all wars”) started World War II within two decades? (History) ● Why do people marry? (Sociology and anthropology) ● What is love? (From the sociological, biological, psychological, and historical points of view) ● Do the Olympics advance our values? (Interdisciplinary) A principal point of big questions is to inspire learners to ask them as well as pursue them. Make Just One Change by Dan Rothstein and Luz Big Questions 87 Santana puts this agenda front and center. Their subtitle telegraphs the “one change”: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions. The authors recommend a carefully designed question formulation technique. The teacher kicks things off by providing a question focus—a theme or topic or object not itself a question, specific enough to be sub- stantive and provocative, and chosen with the larger learning agenda in mind. Many examples from practitioners appear in the book, including “the inside of a cell” and “the scientific method should always be fol- lowed.” Bouncing off the question focus, learners follow a process of brainstorming questions, sorting out closed from open questions, con- verting between the two, and bubbling up the questions that seem most important. Teachers and learners can follow through on the resulting list of important questions in many ways. For instance, the teacher may organize upcoming instruction around the chosen questions, or learn- ers may employ the questions to define homework or projects. It’s fair to ask, “But what guarantees big questions?” Answer: nothing. Students may well generate niche questions relevant to the question focus and learning target but not big in our sense of insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. However, it wouldn’t be hard to supercharge the question formulation technique with big questions. Teachers could choose question foci with big understandings in mind. Learners could include criteria related to insight, action, ethics, and opportunity as they sort their questions for importance. The main point is this: putting learners in charge of questions. I could go on, but the notions of throughlines, essential questions, fertile questions, and the question formulation technique with a big questions orientation attached serve well enough to dramatize the idea of living questions. Despite the different names, they share a common commitment, although each occupies a place in its own larger vision of teaching and learning. Question Kits Living questions have a thematic focus: What is virtue? How do we find out the truth about things that happened long ago or far away? Human beings: products of nurture or nature? 88 future wise When teaching or engaged in inquiry, we also often ask questions that are virtually universal, applying to almost any situation. Such ques- tions are lifeworthy because they come up in useful and revealing ways so often. For instance, a small collection of questions looks toward evi- dence in different ways: Why do you think that? Can you explain your reasoning? What’s the other side of the case? What are the pros and cons? What are we taking for granted? Such a family of universal ques- tions might be called a question kit—a collection of questions with a particular agenda. It’s very useful to have such question kits. They are powerful kinds of knowledge. Some question kits have a narrative flow. A widely used example consists of just these two queries: ● What’s going on here? ● What makes you say that? Variations adapt this to different contexts. For instance, one might ask people looking at a work of art: “What’s going on here? What do you see that makes you say that?” Indeed, this pair of ques- tions has an interesting history. It was initially devised for looking at art by Philip Yenawine and Abigail Housen. Deliberately user friendly, not pressing viewers for expert knowledge they often would not have, not even asking for evidence in so many words, the ques- tions invite articulating whatever people make of what’s in front of them and what leads them to those thoughts. These questions have proven startlingly effective toward helping young and old, less and more sophisticated viewers to explore works of art in a thoughtful and engaged way. You’ll notice that nothing in the questions refers specifically to art. In fact, the questions serve wonderfully well across and beyond the dis- ciplines. They’ve become one of several dozen question kits, called thinking routines, in a program for combining thinking with content learning my colleagues and I developed called Visible Thinking. Suppose, for example, that learners are observing an eclipse of the sun or, more likely, a video of an eclipse. There too they can ask: “What’s going on here? Big Questions 89 What do we see that makes us say so?” Or suppose we are tracking the ups and downs of the stock market. The questions apply there also. Or perhaps newspaper readers are wondering why protests in a particular nation are escalating to all-out civil war. Sadly, the questions suit that moment as well. You can find further discussion of this and many other thinking routines in the book Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison, as well as in other sources cited for this chapter. Useful question kits can be constructed for many familiar kinds of thinking. Robert Swartz, Art Costa, Barry Beyer, Rebecca Regan, and Bena Kallick develop an extensive repertoire of strategies and examples in Thinking-Based Learning. For example, skillful decision making might involve these questions: 1. What makes a decision necessary? 2. What are my options? 3. What are the likely consequences of each option? 4. How important are the consequences? 5. Which option is best in light of the consequences? The authors show how to deepen content learning by engaging learners in inquiry using many such question kits. Another family of questions concerns creative thinking broadly speaking. Just as there are many ways of calling for argument and evidence, there are many ways to prompt a look beyond, under- neath, or to one side of whatever seems obvious at first—questions like: “What are we taking for granted without even recognizing it?” “What are some wild options?” “How can we combine two very dif- ferent ideas?” A personal favorite is: “What’s the real problem?” Suppose learn- ers are studying limited energy resources, pondering the scary conse- quences, and wondering why energy consumption in today’s world today seems on a fast train to nowhere. They might brainstorm the real problem in search of further insight and then investigate some of the possibilities. 90 future wise Try This Consider the ever-increasing need for energy and the possibil- ity that this need will overwhelm available energy sources in the medium term. What’s the real problem? Generate a couple of dif- ferent possibilities. Maybe the real problem is that society is shortsighted: people are concerned with the near term very much to the neglect of the long term. Maybe the real problem is that we aren’t investing enough in the devel- opment of alternative renewable energy resources. Maybe the real prob- lem is the snowballing of a consumer society far beyond any real need or even enjoyment. Maybe the real problem is the lack of strong regulatory mechanisms, for instance, a tough carbon tax. Or maybe there’s no real problem. Some sources suggest that population growth is leveling off. We will run out of fossil fuels eventually, but by then other sources, already under development, might meet the need. So when we have to solve the problem, we will. Even this quick example shows that there is something odd about asking for the real problem. All of the possibilities in the example look like contributing factors. One doesn’t ask for the real problem with the expectation of a single best answer. Maybe there is one; maybe not. Rather, the question is a provocation to explore different formulations of the problem situation for any that offer insight and ways forward. Considerable research on creativity motivates examining the real problem. People tend to be solution minded. Without much delibera- tion, they come to a sense of the problem and begin to search for solu- tions. Unfortunately, quick, spontaneous views of a problem are often narrow, conventional, or simply mistaken, leading to little progress. Curiously, this trap applies not only to complex open-ended problems like energy resources but also to the well-defined problems that appear in mathematics and science textbooks, where one of the most frequent mistakes is misinterpreting the problem in the first place. Big Questions 91 With mathematics in mind, another big question for the creative question kit comes from the mathematics educator Stephen Brown: “What if not?” Brown notes that typical mathematical education focuses almost exclusively on problem solving. Problem solving has a natural partner, problem posing or problem finding, which gets very little attention. In school math, the text and the teacher do almost all the problem posing and the learners hardly any. This is certainly not the way real-world mathematics works for mathematicians, engineers, scientists, or economists, where half the game is formulating worth- while problems in approachable ways. “What if not” offers a general and powerful approach to problem posing. For instance, learners might encounter the classic theorem tell- ing us that the sum of the angles of any triangle is 180 degrees, an inter- esting and surprising result supported by various proofs. But if that’s as far as the thinking goes, it’s not thinking like a mathematician. Maybe the learners can expand the horizons of their understanding through asking, “What if not?” What if not what? Well, what if it’s not a triangle, but maybe a quad-rilateral or a five-sided figure. Can anything similar be said then? What if the triangle lies not on a plane but on the surface of a spheres? Can anything be said then? What if we are not talking about flat figures but three-dimensional figures floating in space, like tetrahedrons, for instance? Is there anything to be said about the sum of angles in those circumstances? What about the volume encompassed by the sides of the vertex, the solid angle? Might there be a rule there? In other words, “What if not?” gives learners a way to step outside the boundaries of the case at hand and formulate a range of situations and associated prob- lems that reach further and invite inquiry. Just as what’s going on here/what do we see that makes us think so began in the arts but applies almost universally, so with what if not despite its beginning in mathematics. For instance, people today typically live somewhat under 100 years. What if not? What if most people lived to be 150 or 300? How would that change the world? Or what if not again? What if because of some genetic disease, average human life spans dropped drastically to around thirty years? 92 future wise Or: when people today have children, this is pretty much a roll of the genetic dice. What if not? What if we could engineer the kinds of traits we would like into our children, a prospect not at all impossible in light of advances in our understanding of genetics? Should we? Would we? What kinds of traits? If we did, what difference would it make in the way the world works? It would be easy to go on and on with this theme of universal ques- tions and question kits. Programs to teach various kinds of thinking skills are full of such question kits for areas like understanding, truth testing, creativity, decision making, and so on. The Visible Thinking program above is just one of many. But What about Answers? But what about answers? That’s a good question right there, and it’s not difficult to understand where the question might come from. With an ocean of big questions rolling before our eyes, many skeptical par- ents might roll their eyes about keeping questions so much in the fore- ground. So what about answers? What is their place in all this? The answer to that appeared in chapter 3: the central role of big understandings. Such understandings are answers, lifeworthy answers, the largest and most important answers we have for the lives learners are likely to live, big in insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Of course, this does not mean that big understandings always offer final answers. Some big understandings can be learned with high confidence, as with well-established concepts and theories in science, although new discoveries might challenge them. Sometimes big understandings are clearly provisional and contentious, as with Jared Diamond’s answer to Yali’s question. Almost always big under- standings are incomplete, because almost always, more remains to be mapped. So, yes, of course answers bigger and smaller are important. However, learners’ own question-driven search for answers is also important. It would not serve the purposes of education well, and particularly not Big Questions 93 educating for the unknown, simply to give all our students our best- foot-forward answers between the covers of a megatextbook or across the pages of a giant website. There are several reasons that this wouldn’t do the job we want. First, learners’ personal pursuit of a question often makes for bet- ter learning. The given answer is not understood; the answer pursued and mastered is. Also, some big questions remain vexing. Providing a single settled official answer would be unethical in a deep sense. (Here we have to acknowledge that some people much prefer the single set- tled official answer, however ungrounded, simply because they think it’s safer.) In addition, answers in the form of big understandings typically lead on to more specialized but still big questions. If democracy in general has such-and-such a shape, how about our state or our nation? If energy resources suffer such-and-such a broad pattern of pressures, how about in our community? If Newton’s laws describe objects in motion, how about the orbits of the planets? The general answers offered by big understandings are useless without the further ques- tioning, thinking, and observation that translates them into answers in particular cases. For yet another reason, the point is not just to learn answers, how- ever well understood, but also to learn the art and craft of questioning and pursuing answers. Students certainly would not learn such a thing without doing it. I’ll add here that pursuing answers certainly does not mean making them up out of the air according to whimsical prefer- ences and personal fantasies. Evidence and argument always count, and if sometimes the best evidence and argument that can be mustered leaves some of the issues unsettled, a best-shot answer or set of answers is still a fair distance beyond a guess. Finally, it’s worth remembering that in the Socratic tradition, some- times the mission of a question is to unsettle rather than settle, at least for a while. That’s certainly true of the biggest question of this book: “What’s worth learning?” Sometimes the greatest barriers to moving forward appear not where we are too clueless but where we are too con- fident about already having the right answer. 94 future wise reimagining educaTion The conversation to have: Big questions as part of the learning for the learners and context. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning When you or I think of content, what first comes to mind is prob- ably the collective knowledge and understanding of society: the answers, not the questions. But lifeworthy learning invites more than answers. Big questions are partners to big understandings. Big questions typically lead toward big understandings, and fur- ther big questions lead beyond the big understandings-so-far toward further inquiry. Big questions need to be part of the con- versation too. Big questions contrast with niche questions. Niche questions, like niche understandings, play key roles in the inner workings of a discipline, but big questions look outward from the discipline to how it illuminates the lives people are likely to live. Big questions, like big understandings, involve insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. They foster not just wondering about but wondering at, not only intellectual curiosity but also a sense of wonder in the face of the mysteries of the world. The conversation might explore how to make wondering at a strong presence in teaching and learning. Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning Just as with big understandings, we face a serious challenge of choice. Just as with big understandings, there are too many big questions to address in basic education or indeed in a lifetime. However, this doesn’t make the challenge of selection any worse than it already was with big understandings. For the most Big Questions 95 part, big questions and big understandings come together in bundles. Smart sampling of those bundles for richness and range is a powerful strategy. Again, the literary model can help the conversation. In addition, there are a number of very general big questions such as simply, “Why?” or, “What’s going on here? What makes you say that?” or, “What’s the real problem?” or, “What if not?” that are worth learning and wielding, because they apply fruit- fully to almost anything. Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning Big questions are something we can all learn to cherish. They commonly provide the energy and direction for lifeworthy teach- ing. Socratic questioning is one classic version of this. Relatedly, teachers can keep living questions in the foreground—questions that learners find genuinely at issue and worth engaging. Some of these questions may well come from the learners themselves. They can take the form of throughlines or essential questions or fertile questions, broad themes of inquiry that stretch through a unit and across units. Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum We usually think of curricula as large-scale bundles of concepts, skills, and information. But big questions are important content also. Try this conversation: a curriculum based on big living ques- tions, for instance, in the form of throughlines, might have more direction and energy than one built entirely of the “answers” of concepts, skills, and information. 5 Lifeready Learning Making What’s Worth Learning Ready for Life You’re a soldier guarding the gates of troY. You take a peek outside. What’s this? A monumental horse made of wood. Where would it have come from? The Greeks, you guess, our honorable enemies. An elegant gesture on their part! Of course those Greeks can be deceptive. But scouting around, you don’t see any Greeks lurking behind the rocks. No one there! Hey, fellas, let’s drag the horse inside and celebrate! So far, the story seems familiar enough. And everyone knows what happens: Greek soldiers hidden within the horse sneak out in the mid- dle of the night to open the gates of Troy from the inside. But there’s a less familiar twist to the story if we go back to Homer for a careful look. Wait! Are those voices? Does your fellow guard hear them too? It almost sounds as though the voices are coming from inside the horse. But what nonsense! Let’s get this thing through the gates! Surely the Trojans would know in principle that deceptions are possible. Surely they would know, if they thought about it, that there’s enough room inside that horse to hold a few soldiers. But they don’t put it together. I take this classic example from a classic of history, Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly. Tuchman’s theme is the folly of several critical decisions in history. Outright folly occurs, Tuchman urges, when the key figures know enough to know better but don’t put it together. 97 98 future wise Her detailed cases include King George’s decision to escalate the conflict in the American colonies, leading to the American War of Independence, and the US-Vietnam conflict. But her introductory example, to get the idea of folly on the table, is the story of the Trojan horse. She acknowl- edges that the tale is most likely apocryphal. No matter, she says. The spirit is right. The Trojans knew enough to know better. “Those foolish Trojans,” we are likely to say. “Now if I had been one of those guards, things would have been different.” We imagine that we generally put things together when there’s something to put together. Nice thought. Here’s the thing: maybe we have plenty of lifeworthy learning, but that learning does not do us any good unless we can put things together in the moment. As with the Trojans, it’s very easy to have the relevant knowledge without putting it together. This is especially likely to be a problem for knowledge acquired academically and exercised mostly on quizzes and formal essays. Just because you studied ideas about democracy does not make your under- standing ready for making sense of a newspaper story about how a new democracy seems to be veering back to autocracy. Just because you stud- ied some ideas about probability does not make your understanding ready for the wild card of surgical risks when you face a medical decision. In fact, the difference between knowing something worthwhile in principle and putting it to work in practice is so important that it deserves its own word. Alongside what’s lifeworthy, let’s also speak of what’s lifeready. Lifeworthy learning is lifeready when it’s ready to come together in particular contexts to solve problems, make decisions, formulate plans, embrace and enjoy an experience, or simply make sense of a puzzling world. Like lifeworthy, lifeready is a matter of degree. But the main point is this: when you know something lifeworthy, that doesn’t automatically make it lifeready. As educators, we need to reach for a larger sense of what’s involved in getting learning lifeready. Such a focus on the teaching-learning process is a bit of a depar- ture here. This book mostly concerns what’s worth learning, not how Lifeready Learning 99 things get learned. Readers interested in my own recent thinking about teaching and learning might look at my Making Learning Whole. That book integrates a number of ideas about teaching and learning into a set of seven broad principles, each with a chapter devoted to it: play the whole game, make the game worth playing, work on the hard parts, play out of town, uncover the hidden game, learn from the team, and learn the game of learning. It even includes an early and sketchy version of the ideas in this book. Readers might also look to the widely used teaching for understanding framework that several colleagues and I developed. You’ll find more about both below. Although the teaching-learning process is not the central theme here, we can’t neglect it entirely because of the challenge of lifereadi- ness. To matter to the lives learners are likely to live, lifeworthy content can’t be taught and learned in just any old way. All of this leads to a couple of big questions (yes, big questions in our official sense, because they really matter to learning in our lives): Question A: What does a big understanding [or big question] need to be like to be lifeready? Question B: What kinds of teaching and learning make it lifeready? Understanding as Thinking What does a big understanding need to be like? For one thing, it has to be a genuine understanding. A number of years ago, several colleagues and I began an investiga- tion of understanding recounted in Teaching for Understanding, edited by Martha Stone Wiske. One line of inquiry involved interviewing ordinary students. What did understanding in various subject matters mean to them? The trend of their responses was striking. Understanding, they felt, meant knowing the facts and routines really well. So, for instance, people who knew how to do all the operations of fractions arithmetic accurately and fluently understood fractions. 100 future wise We quickly realized that there was something wrong with this idea: it didn’t represent a genuine understanding. If learners can do fractions fluently and accurately, does that mean they necessarily understand frac- tions? Does it mean, for example, that they necessarily understand why dividing by fractions involves inverting and multiplying? Do they neces- sarily understand what it means to divide by a fraction in the first place? Do they necessarily understand the different meanings of a fraction—for instance, a fraction as a part of something; a fractions as a “per,” like miles per hour or miles per gallon; a fraction as a ratio, like two women for every nine men at a technical college; a fraction as odds, like 3 to 7, the ratio of the chances of something happening to not happening? Clearly the answer is, “No, not necessarily.” They might be, and often are, good at the computations without understanding much of that. So if this facts-and-routines conception of understanding won’t do, what other conception of understanding might we have? The answer seemed to be understanding as thinking. Recall the story from chapter 3 about the man who answered the query, “What’s something you under- stand really well?” by mentioning Ohm’s law. He went on to explain how he figured things out with Ohm’s law, including problems with his heating system. In general, when adults talk about something they understand really well, whether it’s maintaining friendships or making pies or playing sports, they almost always mention a range of thought- ful activities: planning, being strategic, solving problems, making deci- sions, explaining things, teaching whatever the topic is, and the like. Back to fractions, if you really understand fractions, you can think with them. You can make sense of something like two women for every nine men at a technical college and you can reason with the informa- tion. Or, for an example from the humanities, what does it mean to understand the dilemmas of representative democracy, where elected legislators represent the voice of the people? Certainly just reciting the dilemmas mentioned in the textbook is not enough. You might show understanding by identifying some particular issues where represent- ative democracy proves troublesome and explaining why. You might speculate about some possible solutions. You might ponder whether our technological age allows some practical ways of depending less on a Lifeready Learning 101 few elected figures representing huge numbers of the citizenry, at least for some issues. To up the ante, the kind of thinking that shows understanding can prove rather tricky. Perhaps the best-known examples of this come from science learning, where researchers have identified numerous mis- conceptions held even by most students who do well on the homework and tests. In The Unschooled Mind, Howard Gardner sums up the big picture for science and other areas by pointing to misconceptions in science, rigidly applied algorithms in mathematics, and narrow scripts and stereotypes in the arts and humanities. In Learning Causality in a Complex World, Tina Grotzer examines how causal reasoning about situations commonly goes astray (more on this in chapter 9). In Making Learning Whole and articles, I’ve tried to characterize the challenge of several types of troublesome knowledge. These include ritual knowledge expressed by going through the motions; inert knowledge, hardly activated at all except for the test; foreign knowledge, experienced as weird or nonsensical and rejected; tacit knowledge, not recognized as important; and conceptually difficult knowledge. In summary, to show understanding, people need to think through, about, and with the topic, and to do so rather well. When all people can do is recite or manage straightforward exercises or trip over misconcep- tions and stereotypes, they don’t really understand. All this may appear obvious when said, but it’s easy to miss. Much of our everyday language about understanding doesn’t sound like thinking. We speak casually of having an understanding, as though it were some kind of dossier stored in the head. We mention getting an understanding, as though it were an object received. We announce coming to an understanding, as though it were a place to arrive. We frame understanding as seeing—“I see what you mean”—as though it could be picked up at a glance. We treat understanding like grasping a whole, as in the phrase, “You either get it or you don’t.” The metaphors behind these uses are not ones of thinking with what you know. They are matters of having, detecting, storing away, coming to stand at a place. This is a convenient way of talking, but it leaves out a lot of what understanding means to us. 102 future wise Now let’s go back to question A: “What does a big understanding need to be like to be lifeready?” At least part of the answer is this: the understanding has to be active in a certain way. Understanding some- thing means being able to think with what you know about it, not just to know standard answers or do routine procedures accurately and fluently. Building Understanding through Thinking Understanding as thinking is a very simple point but a powerful one. In the research on teaching for understanding I mentioned earlier, we ended up calling it a performative view of understanding: people develop and show understanding by developing and showing under- standing performances, such as solving problems, making predictions, or explaining based on what they have learned. We also designed a way of teaching and learning centered on the performative view. The details don’t matter so much here, but the basic idea is simple: to understand a topic, learners have to do a lot of thinking around the topic, not just routine recitations and applications. The book The Teaching for Understanding Guide by Tina Blythe and Associates offers a systematic practical introduction to the practice with many examples. To some, this may sound approachable for older students but not so much for younger students. In fact, many teachers have applied the teaching for understanding framework to the early years of educa- tion. It’s just a matter of adjusting the level of thinking to the young- sters. Happily, quite young children often surprise everyone with their insights. Making Learning Whole offers some help here—the notion of a jun- ior version. If we want young children to do some thinking about, say, an idea from physics or causal patterns in history, they don’t have to be juggling equations or diagramming ten lines of historical influence. A ramp into the topic with a genuine understanding at an appropriate level typically can take the form of a junior version, involving an ini- tial level of performance entirely substantive but not nearly as complex Lifeready Learning 103 as one might use later. Making Learning Whole has much more to say about junior versions, as well as giving a general account of teaching for understanding and offering other ideas about teaching and learning. Making Learning Whole also speaks to what’s worth learning through the first of its seven principles: play the whole game. Learning com- monly falls flat because it does not come in meaningful wholes. For instance, students learn historical facts without learning to think his- torically or even to think critically about the history they read. They learn mathematical routines without learning how to manage simple mathematical modeling or mathematical inquiry. Of course, challeng- ing elements need focused attention, and that’s the third principle: work on the hard parts. However, all too often, learners get drilled on the elements without developing any rich sense of the whole game. More generally, constructivist approaches to teaching and learn- ing emphasize thinking with the content to be learned in some form— rediscovering it with the aid of a guide, analyzing it, critiquing it, or applying it diversely. The thinking skills movement of the past several decades has produced helpful resources, broadly bundled under the label infusion. Such approaches to teaching thinking advocate infusing the teaching of thinking into the teaching of content, so that learners simultaneously develop better thinking skills and dispositions and deepen content understanding. Chapter 9 has more to say about this. So, what kinds of teaching and learning make understandings lifeready (question B)? Broadly, the answer is, teaching and learning that foster thinking for understanding. Unless learning cultivates the thinking bit, the understanding is not lifeready. It isn’t even ready for the more challenging kinds of problems that arise in textbooks and classrooms. Understanding as Applying Why was the Ohm’s law man so confident he understood Ohm’s law? Because he could apply it flexibly. Because he could think with it about other things, not just think about it. He could even think with it to plan 104 future wise heating ducts, not just electrical circuits. It’s one thing to understand something fairly deeply as a topic. It’s more than that to understand some - thing as a tool, something to think with about other things, something to wield in making sense of all sorts of things in all sorts of places. The traditional hierarchical structure of education diagrammed in chapter 2—isolated disciplines delivered through teacher-and-text to students who rarely work with one another or relate what they are learning to the larger world—keeps understanding in a box well away from such applications as heating ducts. However, the expansive net- work structure also diagrammed in chapter 2 welcomes heating ducts, kitchen sinks, aardvarks, and zeppelins, as it should, toward insight, action, and ethics for a complex, globalized world. Even a specific case often gives us something to apply widely, not just to understand in itself. An earlier example was the French Revolution. Recall how the fellow who particularly valued learning about the French Revolution cherished it because it gave him a lens through which to look at other events contemporary and historical. Here’s another similar example, the Vietnam War. Many Americans remember Vietnam as a problematic military entanglement. Almost three decades later, beginning in March 2003, the United States got involved in another conflict, this one in Iraq. From the beginning, many commentators warned that Iraq could “turn into another Vietnam,” an ill-considered, costly campaign that proved diffi- cult to leave behind. Today surveys show that the overwhelming major- ity of Americans, not to mention people from other countries, agree that the Iraq engagement was a disaster, dear in lives and economic resources, tricky to pull out of, and poorly motivated in the first place. Even former US president George W. Bush, long resistant to a com- parison of any sort with Vietnam, finally used the analogy in 2007, although only to argue that the United States should not be scared out of Iraq. He contended a bloodbath would follow: “In Vietnam, former American allies, government workers, intellectuals, and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished.” Not only did Bush make the comparison; audience members and commen- tators quickly added their own assessments about how well it held up. Lifeready Learning 105 The point here is not where you come down on the analogy, with Bush or against him or some complicated place in between, but how you set the analogy up and run with it, another reminder that big under- standings are not just topics to think about but tools to think widely with. That stands out plainly for abstract conceptions like Ohm’s law generalized, the notion of energy, the idea of democracy, or the logic and psychology of risk, but trenchant examples like Vietnam or the French Revolution can function as big understandings also. We can view big understandings as sense-making kits. They give us not just singleton ideas but bundles of concepts and examples to put to work in making sense of situations and, often, deciding how to act. It’s not the abstract notion of democracy, energy, or risk that delivers a big understanding but the ensemble of concepts, subconcepts, and examples. The crux here is the turn from topic to tool. Contrast understand- ing the French Revolution or the Vietnam War as a topic in itself with using your understanding as a tool to make sense of other situations. Contrast understanding democracy as a topic with using your under- standing as a tool to make sense of national and international events and examine other systems of government. Contrast understanding the logic and psychology of risk as a topic with using your understanding as a tool to make sense of personal and public circumstances and decisions. So go back to question A again: “What does a big understanding need to be like to be lifeready?” Not only does it have to be ready for thinking, it has to be ready for applying widely, using a topic as a tool to look at other things. Unfortunately, this poses something of a chal- lenge to education. Typical instruction usually foregrounds content as topic but not so often content as tool. Understanding as Noticing To a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We’ve all heard that one. Like many other aphorisms, it’s a half-truth. As to the veridical half, yes, you might run across Freud enthusiasts who 106 future wise live in a world bristling with phallic symbols and oedipal complexes (although Freud himself supposedly warned, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”). Yes, you might run across conspiracy theorists for whom everything from chlorination to the Kennedy assassination is a subver- sive plot. But it’s only half a truth, because just the opposite commonly hap- pens. Look at this topsy-turvy version of the hammer aphorism: to a person with a hammer, nothing looks like a nail. That sounds plain silly. However, it’s probably truer more often than its more familiar sibling. Nothing looks like a nail describes all too well the passive character of much that we learn. Most people who know something about Freud or conspiracy theories—or the French Revolution, or Vietnam, or democracy, or energy, or risk—do not notice moments when these concepts might apply in the midst of a cluttered life. Here the problem is not overprojecting but underprojecting. The loss is not hammering what isn’t a nail but missing nails that ought to be hammered. Recall the Trojan horse example. The Trojan horse didn’t strike the guards as a deception, even though they certainly had the knowledge in principle to be suspicious. The Trojan horse was a nail unhammered. Many jokes and insight problems depend on the same phenome- non to deliver their kick. Try This Here’s a riddle: I grew up in a small town in Maine. A while ago, over a period of three years, a man in our village married three dif- ferent women. He didn’t divorce any of them. None of them died, and he didn’t break any laws. How can you explain this? I’ll come back to the riddle shortly. Meanwhile, one provocative way of naming what happens here is inert knowledge, a concept pro- posed by Alfred North Whitehead and developed further by cognitive Lifeready Learning 107 psychologist John Bransford and others. Concepts and ideas we know in principle, and in principle relevant to the situation at hand, com- monly remain inert. Now the riddle: the man who married the three different women was a priest. He didn’t get married to them; he married them to their fiancés. Congratulations if you got this. Some do, but the majority don’t. The riddle is tricky because we latch onto the dominant meaning of marry—get married to—and forget about the secondary meaning— marry someone to another. Inert knowledge. Of course, this is just a trick, but it illustrates nicely how easily we cannot remember what we know. Unfortunately, inert knowledge is everywhere, not just in riddles and jokes. The problem of inert knowl- edge applies not only to conceptual understandings but also to con- ceptual skills (see chapter 9 on twenty-first-century skills and related matters), which you might think would be easier to activate. For example, ideally whatever general thinking skills people have flow into action almost automatically as needed. Not so. A few years ago, Shari Tishman, Ron Ritchhart, other colleagues, and I conducted several studies of thinking skills to investigate the bottlenecks to better thinking. We framed this as an investigation of thinking dispositions: To what extent were people disposed to think when occasions arose? We worked with students in the latter half of elementary school, prob- ing thinking in problem solving, decision making, and invention. We looked at simple thinking moves such as examining the other side of the case or generating alternative options. We investigated whether the students did not think as well as they might about the situations we posed because (1) they could not execute the thinking moves, (2) they did not feel the moves were relevant, or (3) they did not even notice that the moves might apply. We designed an experimental approach to sort out the three different bottlenecks. Here’s what we found out. All participants were able to execute the skills on demand. However, most of them did not even notice that a thinking move like looking at the other side of the case or generating alternative options might be relevant. When we gave the students a chance to judge whether a move was relevant, only about half of them 108 future wise thought that it was. In other words, they were way underusing the thinking tools at their disposal. They had some hammers but nothing looked like a nail. Years before, our team had conducted other studies monitoring whether people thought about arguments on the other side of the case as they looked at several public issues and explained their own positions. We found that they rarely mentioned arguments on the other side, even when given ample time and encouragement to elaborate. But when directly asked, they could easily do so. These participants included high school students, college students, graduate students, and people in the workforce both with and without college degrees. Studies with similar results from other researchers appear in the literature: people dramati- cally underuse their own general tools for critical and creative thinking. Why does this happen? Sometimes the world speaks to us in a loud voice about its problems. Even if we are a little problem-deaf, we hear and act because the problem is so much in our face: a flat tire, a theft from petty cash, a deliberate insult from someone you thought was a friend, a complaint from a spouse. However, often the world speaks to us in a soft voice, a voice we might not hear at all or might dismiss as nothing much, like the Trojan soldiers dismissing the sounds from the wooden horse. For instance, ethical issues come up all the time in quiet ways dur- ing everyday activities—issues around ethnic slurs, fair treatment, or intellectual property. Politicians make exaggerated statements, but we may not notice, especially if we’re fans of those politicians. National or foreign events occur that we might see more clearly by comparison with familiar historical episodes, if only we made the connection. But we don’t always reach for analogies like comparing Iraq with Vietnam. Everyday interactions would go better with more caution about stere- otyping, overreactions, lack of trust, and so on if only we caught the moment. Medical decisions, insurance decisions, or purchase decisions would benefit from some simple thinking about probabilities and risk if only we thought to apply what we know. But we cannot count on doing so. Lifeready Learning 109 So back once more to question A: What does a big understanding need to be like to be lifeready? It has to involve readiness to notice when in the messy flow of life the understanding fits and affords insight, informs action, and offers ethical perspective. Understanding as Caring Understanding as thinking, understanding as applying, understanding as noticing: so far, that’s rather cerebral. But to be lifeready, an under- standing has to be more than cerebral. We have to cherish what it reveals and what it can do for us. Otherwise we’re not likely to put it to work as we navigate the hours of our days. One eloquent expression of this comes from Noel Entwistle and Velda McCune, who write of the disposition to understand for oneself. This quality, they argue, is tremendously important for what it means to be a good learner and thinker. And it’s easy to see why. You are posi- tioned much better to build big understandings in the first place when you have a strong disposition to understand for yourself rather than just trying to swallow a canned version of the understanding. Moreover, you are positioned much better to put that big understanding to work in later situations when you have a strong disposition to understand those situations for yourself. So a basic issue here is to identify what makes an understanding care-about-able? Some clues pop up in the examples already in play. Probably you, dear reader, are not a flag-waving fan of Ohm’s law. Chances are you don’t care much about it one way or another. The Ohm’s law man cared, but not narrowly, about Ohm’s law. Remember how he saw something broader in that law, perhaps a general way of understanding a range of physical relationships as discussed at the beginning of chapter 3. That broad understanding still may not make you a fan of Ohm’s law, but clearly the general view entices our sense of lifeworthiness more than Ohm’s law does as a technical corner of electronics. 110 future wise In the same way, you might not have much interest in the US con- flict in Vietnam in itself. But certainly, Vietnam as analogy is more evoc- ative than just Vietnam in itself. You might not fall in love with the Vietnam lens for looking at risks, but at least you see the potential. What we’re talking about here began with the bicycle metaphor that opened chapter 2. Just as a bicycle gives us a vehicle to go some- where, we want knowledge and understanding that give us vehicles for going somewhere. Our definition of big understandings picks up on that spirit. Recall how big understandings deliver on four fronts: big in insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Insight means making sense of the world around us, a rewarding and often exciting experi- ence. Action means informing how we can act effectively in the world according to our passions, commitments, and practical needs, again a good value proposition. Ethics helps guide us through the maze of moral balancing acts that inevitably emerge in our professional, family, civic, and other relationships, again serving natural motives as well as social needs. Insight, action, and ethics all make big understandings something not just to wonder about but wonder at, in the spirit of big questions. And finally we have opportunity. Unless occasions are likely to come up for those insights, actions, and ethical judgments, the under- standing can’t be serving us very well. It can’t be truly lifeworthy. To be lifeworthy, it has to matter to the lives learners are likely to live. Of course, people have individual interests and needs. For all sorts of reasons, different learners bring different energy to different themes. Nothing about the profile of a big understanding promises it will provoke equal passion or inspire equal practical interest in everyone, despite delivering insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Idiosyncratic attractions and aversions have to be acknowledged and indeed cher- ished and leveraged as part of who we are. Chapter 2 of Making Learning Whole, titled “Make the Game Worth Playing,” probes these themes of personal and general motivation. Here the main point is not that everyone should like everything equally. Rather, the point is that learners should have abundant opportu- nity to develop a rich and vivid appreciation of how what they are Lifeready Learning 111 learning speaks to the lives they are likely to live. Otherwise why learn it? Otherwise why hold on to it? Otherwise why keep on the alert to put it to work? Back to question A one last time: it’s appreciating such matters about a big understanding that makes the understanding care-about- able. And care-about-able is nothing to take for granted. Every day, mil- lions of students learn potential big understandings in ways that don’t recognize and celebrate their bigness, that don’t bring out how those understandings afford exciting insights, effective actions, and sound ethics with abundant opportunity. Every day, millions of students learn content that’s lifeworthy in principle without any conceptual or pas- sionate sense of its lifeworthiness. Without that sense, what’s lifewor- thy isn’t lifeready. Understanding Democracy Looking at an example will make all these ideas clearer. Several times, I’ve mentioned democracy as an area of big understandings and ques- tions. If we were teaching democracy for lifeready learning, how might we go about it? I’ll begin by summarizing the story so far. If you have a big under- standing that is lifeready, you’re ready in four ways: you’re ready to think, apply, notice, and care. Although I’ve told the story in terms of big understandings for simplicity, the same applies to big questions. If you have a big question that’s lifeready, you’re ready to think with it, apply it, notice when the circumstances invite it, and care about the explorations it provokes and the answers it leads you to. Readers who have dipped into the learning sciences may recognize that all four features contribute to what’s usually called transfer of learning. Transfer means that the learner acquires knowledge and skills in one setting and carries them over to other settings that may be very different, like applying Ohm’s law to heating ducts. Many educators expect that learners will transfer whatever they learn almost automatically to other relevant situations. However, 112 future wise extensive research has shown that transfer fails more often than not. Israeli psychologist and educator Gavriel Salomon and I have written about the challenges of transfer several times. Rather than seeing trans- fer as intrinsically difficult, we’ve emphasized that typical teaching pro- cesses do not prepare learners very well for transfer. One problem is that transfer calls for either “high road” reflective learning for mindful deliberate transfer or “low road” extensive practice in varied circum- stances for automatic transfer. Teaching and learning scenarios that move briskly through content provide neither. Another problem is that conventional teaching neglects the dispositional side of learning by not fostering sensitivity and inclination to engage the content and connect it widely. Of course, there are many accounts of transfer and its difficulties. To mention one more with a particularly broad moral for practice, Randi Engle and colleagues contrast two instructional styles: bounded framing and expansive framing. In bounded framing, teachers implicitly and explicitly frame the learning agenda as for now, for this class, for this unit, toward the homework and the test. In expansive framing, teachers implicitly and explicitly frame the learning agenda as for later, for sustained meaning, for diverse connections. Engle and colleagues offer several lines of evidence suggesting that bounded versus expansive framing makes a big difference. This brings us around again to question B: What kinds of teaching and learning make understandings lifeready? In broad terms, the answer to question B is simple: the learning process has to involve experience with thinking, applying, noticing, and caring. Nobody is going to learn to skate without skating or to climb cliffs without climbing cliffs. And nobody is going to learn a topic for thinking, applying, noticing, and caring without some experience of those sorts as part of the learning. Unfortunately, the school treatment of a topic typically does not accomplish all four, and often none of the four. Students acquire infor- mation about the topic without thinking about the topic. That’s none of the four. Or if they think about the topic seriously, they don’t apply Lifeready Learning 113 the topic to other matters, instead focusing on just the topic itself. Or if they do apply the topic to other matters, the teacher or text proposes the particular applications; learners don’t have to find their own occa- sions, and so they don’t learn to notice. Even if all that happens, it’s often not with a kindled sense of discovery and empowerment but sim- ply an exercise, nothing to care about. With all this in mind, it’s time to imagine some different approaches to teaching ideas about democracy. All the approaches share the same introductory reading. The reading develops a comparison between a classic democracy (Athens), a stable contemporary democracy (one with a long history of more or less smooth operation), and a fragile democracy (typically a relatively new democracy, showing patterns of regression to more authoritarian forms or strong factions that reach for dominance far more than collaboration). In the introductory reading, neither the democracy of Athens nor the stable contemporary democracy gets treated as ideal. The chapter raises questions about the cumbersome character of the highly par- ticipative Athenian democracy, especially if scaled up to serve nations of contemporary size rather than city-states like Athens. The chapter examines the problems of lack of civic participation in stable repre- sentative democracies with their layers of elected officials and no direct roles for most citizens. While confronting the challenge of factions in fragile democracies, the chapter notes political, religious, labor-related, and other forms of factionalization in stable democracies and probes the implications. Try This With that as a starting point, imagine what a rich learning expe- rience would be like—one attentive to the problem of lifeready learning. Make a quick sketch in your mind. You can compare it to the ideas below. 114 future wise Here are some different treatments of the democracy topic: Baseline approach. The learners begin by reading the chapter. The teacher leads a discussion reviewing the content. Each learner picks a particular theme, say factionalization or problems of participation versus representation, and writes an essay summarizing how the theme applies to the three examples, defending the summary with citations to various points in the chapter. Improvement 1. The learners begin by reading the chapter. Then they get into some extended discussions, analyzing the critiques in the chapter and exploring possible solutions for some of the problems raised. Toward the end of the unit, each learner picks a particular theme, say factionalization or problems of partic- ipation versus representation, and writes an essay elaborating it across the three examples, incorporating ideas that emerge during the discussions, and constructing some kind of summa- tive perspective defended by evidence and argument. Improvement 2. This approach begins in the same manner as improve- ment 1. The learners read the chapter and go on to extended discussions. About two-thirds of the way through the unit, the teacher introduces a fourth example: a nation that describes itself as democratic. The learners are asked to research this nation’s democratic practices using the Internet and other resources. Each learner develops a commentary on the nation’s democratic strengths and weaknesses, using the ideas from the original three-way comparison as a tool kit. Each learner pro- duces an essay with a summative perspective defended by evi- dence and argument. Improvement 3. This approach starts the same way as improvements 1 and 2. A bit into the process, the learners start to monitor inter - national news headlines, using the Internet, to look for events that seem personally interesting—dramatic, inspiring, disturbing—from the perspective of democracy. They keep logbooks with brief observations and reflections. Later the teacher asks the learners to look over their logbooks, each learner choosing one example Lifeready Learning 115 that seems particularly illuminated by the ideas the class has been exploring. Each learner chooses an incident and analyzes it, with some kind of summative perspective defended by evidence and argument. I hope that these approaches seem reasonable as learning experi- ences. None of them is meant to be especially fancy. It’s easy to imagine richer versions—perhaps some kind of inquiry process before the chap- ter at the beginning, group rather than individual projects, or explo- rations not just of ideas around democracy but “what I might do as a citizen.” Add your own improvements by all means. The main point is this: These approaches handle lifereadiness very differently. The baseline approach calls only for summarizing, without constructing a critical perspective—not very much understanding-as- thinking there. Improvement 1 calls for critical analysis of the con- tent. That’s certainly thinking but not applying the content toward other situations. Improvement 2 involves other situations, which of course is good, but they are provided by the teacher. Understanding- as-noticing shows up only in improvement 3. And how about understanding-as-caring? The potential for this increases from improvement 1 to improvement 3 as learners engage in richer activities with more choice that help to bring out payoffs of insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. In addition, an artful teacher certainly could do much to inspire learner recognition of and interest in what this rich theme has to offer. Pathways and Pitfalls Ah, those Trojans! They may have had lifeworthy knowledge, but what they knew wasn’t lifeready enough for the wily Greeks. We know a lot more about learning today, and we know broadly what we need to do. Lifeready learning involves learners’ thinking, applying, noticing, and caring. This doesn’t happen so often, and it’s not hard to see why. For one thing, there is a widespread naive faith in transfer of learning. Knowledge 116 future wise is knowledge, says this faith. If learners know something in any sense, they will connect it readily to sorts of circumstances. Unfortunately, that is not so. For another, the extra learning needed for lifereadiness makes the architecture of the teaching-learning process inconveniently compli cated. Compare the baseline approach with improvement 3. Improvement 3 involves considerably more planning and classroom choreography—and time! Naturally both teachers and students like to keep it simple. But keeping it simple doesn’t accomplish what we really need. In many classrooms and schools around the world, however, stronger patterns of teaching and learning unfold. They deserve some recogni- tion, along with a caution or two about how they can veer off track. Many frameworks for organizing instruction conclude with a sec- tion on applications or something like that. This certainly can do some good if it gets serious time. One risk is that the applications part often comes at the end, a token caboose, short and stubby, and, at that, com- monly skipped because of time pressures. The shift to applications really ought to occur somewhere partway along the unit, not on the last day or hour. Here’s a mantra to take to heart: start the end in the middle! The end is too late to get started on the end. Some subjects routinely emphasize tool-like applications. For instance, we generally teach mathematics from a tools perspective. To be sure, the computational routines need development, but students also spend much of their time applying these operations to solving story problems: time-rate-distance problems, mixture problems, and sometimes more wild card kinds of problems. When students learn physics, they generally apply theories like Ohm’s law to a range of exam- ples. Literary studies often introduce analytical tools like the classic character, setting, and plot and ask students to marshal them toward understanding works of literature. Such practices take an important step toward applications. But there are some risks. Problems typically are small-scale exercises rather than full-blown complex situations. Students tend to experience them as exercises, not great for understanding as caring. Moreover, noticing gets little development because problems come with the text Lifeready Learning 117 or worksheet. There’s plenty of problem solving but very little prob- lem finding, a worry many mathematics educators have expressed. The exercises at the ends of the sections in typical textbooks concern the methods just introduced, and the exercises at the end of the chap- ter call for the very limited set of methods drawn from the chapter, so learners are always rummaging among a few tools they know for sure are relevant. When learners face problems not situated conven- iently next to appropriate methods, they get confused about what tool to choose. Several richer ways of organizing instruction travel under names like project-based learning, problem-based learning, learning through community service, case-based learning, studio learning, and so on. The differences between these don’t matter here ( Making Learning Whole gives sketches, and there are many accounts in the literature). For our purposes, what stands out is their common ingredient: a complex, somewhat open-ended challenge calling for an extended deliberative approach. The challenge might, for instance, involve planning how to relieve anticipated long-term water shortages in the community, diag- nosing causes contributing to an international dispute, or considering how and whether modern technologies offer new patterns of demo- cratic participation. Such project-like arcs of learning commonly do include thinking, applying, noticing, and caring. Emphasis falls on a tool-like application of ideas, inspired by the rich problem or project. The complexity of the project makes the challenge not just finding the one “right” tool or even tool kit but also deploying tools in combination and extending the tool kits as you go. Try This Project-based learning, problem-based learning, and so on, sound perfect for our agenda of not only lifeworthy but lifeready learning. How do you think they might sometimes fall short? Can you identify a couple of potholes? 118 future wise I’m sure there are many answers to that question. Here’s what I’ve seen. Project-based learning, problem-based learning, and so on are not quite plug-in solutions to the challenge of lifeready learning. Educators have to get the details right. For instance, some projects are overly structured. Students are told exactly what to do in the spirit of ensuring suc- cess, but then they get no experience of searching out conceptual tools or homing in on particular cases of application. Also, much of learners’ time may go to managing aspects of the project extraneous to the principal learning goals. In my own teaching over the years, I’ve often encountered a version of this. Sometimes students tackle projects based on technol- ogy where they spend most of their time struggling to get the technology to work, a technical problem extraneous to the real learning goals. So it’s one of those good news–bad news things. On the good news side, we understand broadly what needs to be done for lifeready learning. We have some teaching-learning strategies like project-based learning, problem-based learning, and studio learning that can package up pretty well what needs to be done. On the bad news side, it’s time-consuming and organizationally demanding. Many teachers take that on and do so effectively, but here’s one way to moderate some of the challenges. The Place of Digital Technologies From time to time, earlier and later chapters touch on digital technolo- gies. Now is a good moment to say a little more about their role. Digital technologies figure fundamentally in the crisis of content we’re exploring. As I’ve already noted, they are among the principal driv- ers of the knowledge explosion, the small world paradox, and the need for a shift from hierarchical to network models of organizing teaching and learning. Also, digital technologies have importance today as areas of big understandings and big questions. They appear in various visions of renewing the disciplines (chapter 8) and various formulations of big know-how (chapter 9). There is a third important role as well: digital technologies as tools of learning. I’m a big fan of what digital technologies can contribute. Indeed, I taught for many years in the Technology, Innovation, and Lifeready Learning 119 Education (TIE) program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. To be sure, broad ideas about lifeready learning like understanding as thinking, applying, noticing, and caring can be realized without the help of digital technologies, but the technologies are useful. For one general source, in 2010 the US Department of Education published a thoughtful document representing the reflections of a number of educators concerned with technology: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology. Available online, the document charts numerous ways in which digital technologies can foster wider and deeper learning. One of the contributors, Chris Dede of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, likes to emphasize the breadth of possibilities. When we think of learning with a digital assist, we most often envision students getting information from the Internet or tackling exercises at a computer. For Dede, this is far too narrow a vision. Another option is the artful use of social media to connect learners in various patterns of deliberation, collaboration, and feedback. Then there are immersive virtual environments, virtual worlds through which students navigate in video game style to deepen their understanding of content as well as nourish important patterns of thinking. Chris Dede’s own research and development work with Tina Grotzer and other colleagues involves building such environments for science learning and fostering scientific thinking. The EcoMUVE (a MUVE is a multi-user virtual environment) project teaches middle school students about ecosystems and causal patterns. A further approach uses semi-immersive augmented realities, another area of interest for Dede and an extension of the EcoMUVE project. There, mobile devices equip students to explore real environ- ments, providing information and overlays associated with particular places and objects to generate a wealth of learning opportunities. Besides contributing broadly to learning for understanding, digi- tal technologies also help with some systemic challenges arising from our focus on what’s worth learning. I’ve emphasized the importance of expert amateurism and the error of pushing learners toward niche expertise they will never use. However, let’s acknowledge how impor- tant it is to support energetic and interested students in exploring some 120 future wise of those niches. Contemporary digital technologies make this possible as never before because learners no longer have to depend on what the teachers in their local school happen to know a lot about. This particular puzzle is only one of a bundle of systemic challenges well served by digital technologies. In a short but feisty book, Reinventing Schools, Charles Reigeluth and Jennifer Karnopp define what they see as education’s fundamental need today: a shift from an industrial age paradigm to an information age paradigm. Three of their core princi- ples are an attainment-based system (students each learn whatever they study to a satisfactory level of mastery rather than proceeding lockstep with one another), learner-centered instruction (which includes consid- erable personalization of the learning process), and an expanded curric- ulum (for instance, as explored in this book). All that would be very hard to manage without some use of digi- tal technologies. They can assist with individualizing instruction and assessment and help teachers to sustain a complex choreography of learning across students at different stages. Indeed, another of the core principles from Reigeluth and Karnopp emphasizes such contributions of technology. Let’s put digital technologies to work solving the small world paradox they helped to create. We certainly do not want today’s learners to end up like those Trojans! reimagining educaTion The conversation to have: Making lifeworthy learning lifeready for the learners and context. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning We all have to recognize that identifying lifeworthy learning is just a first step. To do any good, lifeworthy learning has to become lifeready, surfacing in moments of opportunity to deliver insight, action, and ethics. Lifeready Learning 121 Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning Choosing lifeworthy learning for focused attention is just a sec- ond step. The challenge of making lifeworthy learning lifeready remains. Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning Teaching for lifeworthy learning requires teaching-learning pro- cesses that make it lifeready. The crucial conversation here explores how to accomplish this for the targeted lifeworthy content. Broadly, lifereadiness calls for cultivating understanding through learners thinking with what they know and are coming to know. If this sounds heavy for younger learners, they typically thrive on junior versions of the more complex thinking that older learners can manage. Instead of offering younger learners just facts and routines on the theory that they are not intellectually mature enough for more, we can engage them with substantive thinking in junior versions. More specifically, lifeready learning means cultivating not just thinking about the topic but thinking with the topic—understanding as applying, as noticing, and as caring. Unfortunately, considerable learning attends only to thinking about the topic, not thinking with it. That’s good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough for lifereadiness. Some units make room for applications at the end, but often the final phase receives little attention or gets dropped altogether for lack of time. Here’s a better design principle: begin the end in the middle. All of this can be done by individual teachers in their class- rooms with blackboards, pencil, and paper. But it can be done more readily at scale with various kinds of help from digital technologies. 122 future wise Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum We have to face up to it: teaching for lifereadiness takes time— more time than topics often receive in conventional education. This means that smart sampling has to sample even more selectiv- ity in building a curriculum, because there is less room than if we could simply and straightforwardly present lifeworthy learning and it would magically become lifeready in the minds of learners. 6 The Seven Seas of Knowledge Lifeworthy Learning from the Disciplines Can you name all seven of the seven seas? Everyone has heard of “the seven seas.” However, if you find making the list a little tricky, do not be surprised. There may not be an official big seven. Wikipedia, that sea of populist information, suggests that the seven usually fall among a slightly longer list: Adriatic, Aegean, Arabian, Black, Caspian, Mediterranean, Red, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf, plus the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans So into what disciplinary bucket would you put all that information? You’re probably thinking geography or maybe oceanography. Either puts all those seas into a single bucket for a good answer. And that brings us to one of the most fundamental things we do to edu- cate: put content into the big buckets of the disciplines—buckets like geography, mathematics, and history. Every single one of those buckets holds a world’s worth of seas, with vastness to encompass and depths to fathom. Of course, just as there are a few more than seven seas, there are a few more than seven disciplines typically taught before college. But neither number is so far off. Besides geography, mathematics, science, literature, and history, one could add economics, visual art, music, physical education, and a few others. Many of these top-level categories can be chopped up more finely, say, science into physics, biology, and chemistry. 123 124 future wise The typical bucket system of precollege education makes a power- ful organizational contribution to learning. The disciplines keep things in order. They maintain arcs of learning over many years of education and draw learners into some of the most fundamental bundles of infor- mation and understanding that we have assembled as a civilization. Moreover, each discipline and often subdiscipline represents a particu- lar way of knowing with its own area of focus and style of evidence and explanation, a theme developed fully in the next chapter. The power of the traditional bucket system has to be acknowledged. However, we also have to remember the question haunting every chapter of this book: What’s worth learning? We have to ask whether the customary disciplines serve lifeworthy learning well. Along the way to this chapter, I’ve grumbled about the iffy lifeworthiness of quadratic equations, mitosis, and similar themes. I’ve examined how people pro- posing what’s worth learning for today’s world often look well beyond the traditional disciplines. Given all that, one might conclude that the traditional disciplines are passé. I don’t think so. I come to praise the disciplines, not to bury them. Although, as typically taught, the disciplines get crowded with niche understandings and niche questions, they offer spacious seas of big understandings and big questions. Of course, even if we’re ready to acknowledge the power and perti- nence of the disciplines, there’s a further issue: Are there other bucket systems, other ways of organizing knowledge that might serve just as well or better, or perhaps work in some sort of partnership with the tra- ditional bucket system? We’ll save that question for chapter 8, devoting this chapter to celebrating how very much the disciplines offer—if they are wisely sampled. What Good Is Poetry? It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, The Seven Seas of Knowledge 125 Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. This sentence marks the beginning of one of the best-known poems in the English language, “Ulysses,” by nineteenth-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. In the course of seventy lines, Ulysses of Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, a sailor of the seven seas, speaks as an old man back in his hometown. He is a reluctant homebody, mem- ories of adventure alive in his lively mind, eager to set forth again somehow, somewhere. At least that is the straightforward reading, although revisionist critics have suggested various shades of irony and self-deception. Tennyson’s “Ulysses” provides as good an occasion as any to ask, with lifeworthy learning in mind, “What good is poetry?” Some might expect a pound of the gavel and the verdict, “No good at all! What practical benefits can flow from nineteenth-century metaphors in the mouth of a three-thousand-year-old fictional figure? Neither this poem nor any other is likely to help us brush our teeth, find a better job, repair a leaky faucet, launch a space shuttle, or negotiate a treaty.” What’s wrongheaded about such skepticism is the supposition that big understandings and big questions should always be practical. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not, at least in the most down-and-dirty sense of practical. For lifeworthy learning, insight into the way the world works counts also. This does not mean that any poem at all or any exploration of it guarantees a world conceptu- ally remade, only that we do not want to slam the door in the face of the Muse. Off and on in the course of the years, I’ve conducted an activity built around “Ulysses,” mainly to illustrate some points about peda- gogy, but the experience speaks to big understandings too. If you want, you could attempt it. You need the whole of the Tennyson poem, but it’s easily found online. 126 future wise Try This Read the poem, and single out a couple of lines that seem particu- larly strong and have a real impact for you. Think about why they are powerful for you, along the following lines: ● Because of something about who I am. (What in particular?) ● Perhaps also because it connects with human nature gener- ally, themes of great scope. (What characteristics, themes?) ● And also because of how Tennyson handled the language. (Exactly what did he do that generated the impact?) It’s a straightforward exercise, built around big questions in the sense of chapter 4. What’s always surprised me, though, is how richly many participants connect to it. They mull over their ideas in pairs (edit- ing out anything too personal as they please) and then those who want to, share their thoughts with the entire group. They often speak insight- fully and eloquently about where the poem moved them, why, and how. This and a whole range of other protocols for addressing works of literature leave me in no doubt that big understandings are to be found in poetry, considered today in US culture as among the most “useless” and neglected of the arts. I’m not saying that simply reading a poem and thinking about it delivers lasting big understandings, as though poems were wisdom vending machines (just put in fifty cents of atten- tion). Much depends on the poem, the manner of reading, the halo of reflection around the experience, and how often such experiences recur. But the potential is there and not very far below the surface either. The principle is that of the exemplar, as, for instance, in the examples of the French Revolution from chapter 1 and the case of the Vietnam War from the previous chapter. There the point was that exemplars offer opportunities for thinking more broadly. Here, “Ulysses” provides a kind of touchstone for contemplating the art of poetry and the human condition broadly and personally. The Seven Seas of Knowledge 127 The case for poetry in general does little to answer the question, “Which poems?” Is “Ulysses” always a good one? Should we throw in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and a few excerpts from Leaves of Grass, and of course a bit of Homer himself, perhaps a Shakespearean sonnet or two, some Yeats, some Auden, Wilbur, Pinsky? Would that do it? For a pop turn, how about adding some clever, gritty rap or the lyrics of Ira Gershwin or Paul Simon? Would that be enough? Well, such a pile of poetry certainly would be grievously gender-centric and culture-centric. Any ultimately right choice is simply slip slidin’ away. Clearly a question like “Which poems?” has no universal answer. This goes back to the idea of smart sampling exercised by teachers of literature, as discussed in chapter 3. It’s in the nature of exemplars as big understandings that different exemplars can do roughly the same job—not exactly, because each exemplar has the engraving of its individ- ual character. Whereas today and here, we might choose Vietnam as the natural exemplar of a foolish war, elsewhere and elsewhen, other choices would be made. Choice is a matter of taste and context. Is the case rich in potential resonance? Is the context one where that resonance can thrive? In the right context, exploring cultural icons like “Ulysses” or Vietnam has real value. It carries immediate relevance and adds a dose of cultural literacy to the mix (two for the price of one). At the same time, relying only on cultural icons is risky, because they almost certainly reflect the culture of the past and the powerful, in the midst of the tur- bulence that creates tomorrow and invites educating for the unknown. A final note on the practical: Perhaps it’s worth distinguishing between the practical practical and the impractical practical. The prac- tical practical treats repairing tires, preparing for job interviews, and checking for termites in the house you’re considering buying. The impractical practical concerns how one engages the world, its arts, its people, its history, its future, its larger miseries and hopes. A consid- erable portion of our lives and much of the quality of life has to do with the impractical practical, so it’s not all that impractical. You might want “Ulysses” and some of its kin in your tool kit along with a jack and a tire iron. 128 future wise What Good Is Algebra? Since even impractical poetry can have a place at the hearth of big understandings, would it really be fair to leave as fearsome a subject as algebra out in the cold? The challenge is somewhat different, though. Poetry surfaces regularly in our lives: as poems, in song, in rap. And poetic modes of expression come up constantly: metaphor, simile, anal- ogy, synecdoche. Poetry also carries visions of the world and our place in it. For most of us, algebra simply doesn’t come up very much. Notice that this is not at all a worry about mathematical foun- dations. The basics of arithmetic easily pass the opportunity test of coming up a lot. So do various kinds of mathematical representations: numerical, tabular, graphical. One can hardly read a newspaper intel- ligently without a solid sense of how these work. Nor, any more than in the case of poetry, is there any commitment to a purely applied and practical agenda. Some relatively abstract mathematical notions occur not infrequently: prime numbers for instance, or infinity. In fact, they come up much more frequently than many of the fancier topics in first- or second-year algebra, which almost everyone studies but hardly any- one has occasion to use. So what are the positive prospects? You may also remember that quadratic equations were not necessarily the niche understanding they seemed to be at first. Chapter 3 told the story of the woman from the Ministry of Education in Tasmania, who suggested that quadratic equa- tions might figure more meaningfully in learning as one perspective on models of growth, a tremendously important big understanding for our era. One could hope for a similar approach to many topics in algebra. What areas of application make them meaningful in the lives people are likely to live and generate more of those close encounters—areas such as models of growth, or economic fluctuations, or optimizing processes in business and industry. We could explore some particulars, but let’s think bigger. Let’s consider mathematical modeling, what algebra is most fundamentally about. You start with a chunk of the world. Perhaps it’s a phenome- non of growth, such as the spread of diseases or the expansion of an economy. You want to get a handle on it, to see where it is going, so The Seven Seas of Knowledge 129 you represent the situation algebraically. You manipulate the algebra to extrapolate or find solutions or make predictions. Then you look back at the world. You say, based on the mathematics, “This is the way this seems to be going, so what do we do about it? Or, “This is what we will need, so where can we get it?” The broad process of mathematical modeling is a big understanding. At first sight, it may seem to belong to sophisticated mathematics: algebra, calculus, and beyond. However, the idea of mathematical modeling surfaces at the very beginning of mathematics, with elementary arithmetic. Imagine, for instance, a carpenter working on a weekend project, perhaps a doghouse. The carpenter makes a sketch of the doghouse; the sketch itself is a model, a pictorial representation of the doghouse-to-be. The carpenter annotates the sketch with various dimensions of the doghouse extending the model with numbers: this long here, that long there, this width and breadth of planks. Then the carpenter jots down the lengths of different kinds of planks needed for the doghouse, adds them up, and heads off to the local lumber supply shop to purchase what’s needed. The whole cycle of modeling is there: beginning with the world, moving to a sketch and the language of numbers, manipulating the numbers, and, with results in hand, turning back to the world. Word problems in arithmetic and algebra are problems of math- ematical modeling. They begin with some scenario in the world and invite a process of mathematical representation and manipulation in order to come back to the world with a result. However, the big idea of mathematical modeling—the powerful cycle from world to mathemat- ical representation to mathematical manipulation to result and back to the world—rarely gets articulated or celebrated as the fundamental, beautiful, and powerful process it is, at least not in the typical school treatment of mathematics. However, some enlightened approaches to the teaching of mathematics do just that. So now again, “What good is algebra?” For one thing, it allows us to play out in further, richer, and more powerful ways the grand enterprise of mathematical modeling with which learners ideally have become familiar since the earliest grades. Look what we can do now! Of course, this works only if that fundamental thread of big understanding has figured throughout the course of learning mathematics. 130 future wise And even then, it will work only if algebra gets a facelift along the lines of quadratic equations and models of growth—a reconfiguration around the kinds of modeling likely to come up in the lives people are likely to live. Maybe it’s too much to expect that such occasions would arise constantly, but at least we should be able to teach ideas from alge- bra that come up a few times in ten years rather than never in ten years. To make this challenge a little approachable, it’s worth recognizing close encounters with mathematical modeling in the sciences—both their study and their applications, even relatively informal applications. We’ll revisit this theme in the next chapter as we explore ways of knowing. What Good from A to Z? What good is poetry? I shared one answer. What good is algebra? I shared another. So now what? Here’s the general point: the familiar seven seas of the disciplines team with lifeworthy learning. To be sure, we don’t foreground what’s lifeworthy consistently and emphatically. To be sure, we also would do well to reach beyond the familiar disci- plines (more on that later). But let’s acknowledge and admire the range of big understandings and big questions ready at hand. Here’s a playful way to get at that. I’m going to take a romp through the alphabet from A to Z, pulling out of the air broad themes belonging to various disciplines that seem rich with lifeworthy learning. The main point: How easy it is to do! In fact, maybe you’d like to take a shot at it. Try This Start with letter A, move to B, then C. Maybe that’s enough, or go as far as you would like, simply listing themes from any discipline familiar to you that you’d intuitively say offer big understandings and big questions—that is, themes plausibly big in insight, action, ethics, and opportunity in the lives learners are likely to live. If you’re in the right mood, you’re likely to find this is not very hard to do. Plenty of fish in those seas! The Seven Seas of Knowledge 131 Here’s my try. Of course, my suggestions are going to be idiosyn- cratic, just like yours. That’s okay. We’re not trying to construct a canonical list, simply celebrate how much is there. Let the good times roll. A could stand for the Alphabet, and the very idea of alphabets, or more broadly of writing, surely one of the most powerful inventions ever made, and made multiple times across Eurasian and American civilizations (discipline: reading and writing). Insights aplenty await here concerning the transformative power of writing in human his- tory. But what about action? Here’s one less obvious angle: writing is almost always taught as a tool of communication. How about as a tool of thought? Various kinds of writing—concept maps, lists, pro-and-con lists, diagrams—function as powerful means of inquiry, decision mak- ing, problem solving, and learning. But almost never does education address these directly, and not every learner automatically develops a powerful repertoire. Or let’s say A for Aesthetics, not in an erudite philosophical sense but more as an understanding of the basics of aesthetic engagement and managing oneself for openness, insight, and sensitivity through aesthetic encounters with anything from Dylan to Wagner, Warhol to Vermeer (disciplines: the arts, literature). Whoever thinks this an imprac- tical pursuit might want to remember that people spend a considerable percentage of their lives in one or another form of direct or indirect aes- thetic engagement, that “impractical practical” category again. For B, let’s say the Basic Machines of physics: the classic lever, pul- ley, inclined plane, screw, and so on; how they present fundamental physical phenomena; how they show up in practical roles all around us; and how we can improvise versions of them from time to time to solve problems (discipline: physics). C could stand for Caesar, Czar, Conqueror, Coercive Leadership, sometimes Charismatic Leadership, often Catastrophic Leadership (disciplines: history, social studies). Action dimensions are whom to follow, to support, and why; ethical dimensions are obvious also. Let D stand for something controversial in some quarters: the Darwinian view that sophisticated forms of life such as human beings evolved from less elaborate forms through a process of natural selec- tion (discipline: biology). The reach of this way of thinking extends well 132 future wise beyond the development of biological organisms. The generative pat- tern of variation, selection, and inheritance is an important mechanism behind the development of languages over historical time, the spread of fashions, and the popularization of political and practical innova- tions. Evolutionist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene coined a term for the ideas that spread and evolve in society, not genes but memes. Contemporary ideas about crowdsourcing, the search for effective pharmaceuticals, and more involve what might be considered engi- neering versions of the Darwinian paradigm. For E, a choice for our times would be Energy, the scientific concept and the social implications, conservation of energy a scientific law and conservation of energy a social imperative, along with finding new and renewable sources of it (disciplines: physics, chemistry). For F, how about Financial Systems, one of the most fundamental factors in the building of civilizations? It includes the dynamics of con- temporary financial systems, their problems and busts, fiscal respon- sibility, and something about how to stay out of trouble if you can (disciplines: economics, history). For G, Government and its forms—democracy, autocracy, com- munism, socialism, name-your-ism—not just in dry definitional terms but with an operative sense of what it means to participate in them or even build them (disciplines: history, social studies). Or the Germ Theory of disease, with its fundamental insights, as well as implica- tions for personal health management (discipline: biology, health). Or G for the force of Gravity, fundamental to how falling works as a process of continuing acceleration, why falling farther is falling harder, why throwing farther requires throwing harder, why weirdly those sat- ellites in orbit stay in orbit (discipline: physics). Or G for Gymnastics, for Gymnasium—what the body can do and what about the body makes possible what it can do (disciplines: physical education, health). For H, let’s think back more than two and a half millennia before Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and honor Homer—the Greek bard, not the American cartoon character (although Homer Simpson is something of a cultural icon too): Homer the singer of tales because of his two grand epics and what they reveal concerning universals of the human The Seven Seas of Knowledge 133 condition, as well as what they reveal of poetry and song, Homer whose story of the Trojan horse we visited quickly at the beginning of the pre- vious chapter (disciplines: literature, history). However, if Homer is not the wellspring for your culture or mind- set, pick another, even Homer Simpson. Or, for a theme way loftier than Homer Simpson, consider H for Human Rights, a construction that hardly existed in recognizable form until the last five centuries, and gained huge momentum from the United Nations establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which continues to accu- mulate refinements as well as crystallize debate and that functions as a philosophical and legal force of genuine significance across peoples and nations in today’s world (disciplines: social studies, history). For the letter I, say Inflammable, oxidation, the fundamental chem- istry of fire that pushed early civilizations forward, the fundamental chemistry of rust, the fundamental chemistry of energy production in the human body. It’s hard to get more fundamental and ubiquitous than that (disciplines: chemistry, history, biology). For J, not, please, Jack the Ripper but rather Justice, a complex human construction of ethics and law pivotal to civilization but often only precariously sustained (disciplines: history, social studies). Perhaps the earliest articulation of justice at any scale was the Code of Hammurabi, a ruler of Babylon in the first half of the eighteenth century BCE. In the section of The Louvre examining Mesopotamian civilization, the code appears on a huge black stone stele, treating mat- ters such as marriage, contracts, inheritance, crime, legal processes, and more. What kind of justice could you expect then, what can you expect now, and how much better is it today? (This might depend on where you live and who you are.) K for Kilograms, millimeters, measurement, the world of meas- urement so central for everything from household carpentry to engi- neering, with basic ideas of measurement commonly misunderstood by young learners (discipline: mathematics, with connections to all the sciences, economics, engineering). L for Logic, reasoning, argument, looking to the patterns of infor- mal and formal inference that allow one to make more of what we know 134 future wise to start with than might seem obvious at first (disciplines: reading and writing, also oral communications). Elementary, my dear Watson? Not so elementary at all, but if we want to squeeze the most from the knowl- edge we start with, we need a style more like Sherlock than sheer luck. For M, Mathematics would be far too large—not just a big under- standing but a world of such understandings. But we might bring again into play here the basic cycle of Mathematical Modeling discussed in the previous section (discipline: mathematics). And we might add in other ways of modeling, for instance, through graphics, simulations, and running mental models. Modeling in various forms is one of our most powerful capabilities. Or M can be for Metaphors: what they are, how they work, those engines of the imagination (discipline: literature). But also, come to think of it, metaphors are common in science and other disciplines. They are models of a sort. For N, perhaps Nationalism, a fundamental force in intranational and international politics (disciplines: history, social studies). It ranges from relatively hard core (think the Nazis) to relatively soft core, with a much more generous attitude toward those other countries out there. It’s easy to suppose that nationalism has always figured strongly in politics, but that is not so. The idea of nationalism began to emerge in Western Europe in the middle of the second millennium as govern- ments tried to strengthen the fealty of national populations for mil- itary and economic reasons. It mushroomed in the violent twentieth century, even before nuclear weapons. Looking at the forces of globali- zation, some people argue that nationalism as a functional construct is on its way out. Too many of the problems of today’s world, such as energy and ecological degradation, have an intrinsically international character. Maybe. We’ll see. In any case, the theme and the issues are provocative and important. For O consider juxtaposing the Orient and the Occident, the worlds of East and West, their tremendously different histories, their inner complexities, and their current convergence in certain ways with today’s intermingling of trade and culture (disciplines: global studies, history, social studies). “Orient and Occident” offers much toward disturbing The Seven Seas of Knowledge 135 comfortable parochial views of how the world works. For one power- ful subtheme, social psychologist Richard Nisbett, among others, has argued that as a broad trend, people of Eastern cultures think in subtly different ways from people of Western cultures. They are less inclined to reduce events to underlying principles and character traits, more inclined to recognize complex interactions. P is for Paradigm: Thomas Kuhn’s notion of scientific paradigms, the way science rolls forward in waves of broad approaches that shift from time to time (disciplines: various sciences), along with a critical view of Kuhn’s notion. It’s about how science works as a discipline in the broadest sense. And, come to think of it, one can say the same about other disciplines. What’s the game here? That’s always a good question to ask, as we do in the next chapter. As to Q, I’m not going to promote quantum mechanics. That fundamental insight into the physical world has tremendous tech- nical importance but little ready application outside of events largely at the atomic and subatomic levels. It’s a better candidate for acquaintance knowledge, something to know a bit about rather than really understand. (But maybe I’m just waiting for a woman-from- Tasmania event that would do for quantum mechanics what she did for quadratic equations.) For now for Q let’s say Quest, like the Quest for the Holy Grail and any other quest where heroes set out to find what has been lost or hidden or stolen or simply rumored (disci- plines: literature, cultural studies). The archetype of the quest in song and literature is one of our fundamental narratives. Monty Python’s version is included, of course. R is for Reality itself. What counts as real, why, and how has that changed and why (disciplines: mathematics, science, and more)? For instance, negative numbers, 0, and even 1 did not used to be considered genuine numbers; at best, they were conveniences to facilitate calcula- tion. If today those seem obviously real, how about infinite numbers or imaginary numbers, since mathematics includes both? Or how about the number 3? Is that real, and in what sense? Presumably it’s not real in the sense of a stone you kick. What gets counted as real by whom yesterday and today tells us much about how we construct conceptually 136 future wise the supposedly real worlds we walk through and work within every day. What’s real to you? S is for Statistics and probability, which I already urged as a big understanding (discipline: mathematics). T is for Tyranny and for Tragedy, two another patterns for cod- ing and critiquing the human condition (disciplines: history, social studies, literature). While we’re at it, let’s add T for the Tragedy of the Commons, a conception from economics fundamental to under- standing the serious problems of resource management people face in most parts of the world (disciplines: social studies, economics). The “commons” referred to is the publicly owned grazing ground for cat- tle or sheep. The tragedy is that as long as the grazing ground is freely available to all, individuals will graze their sheep until the grass is destroyed by overuse. Indeed, from the analytical perspective of game theory, it is rational as a matter of individual choice to do so (add another G to the list here, the rudiments of Game Theory— discipline: mathematics). Only collective accords among those involved can dodge the logic, which applies just as well to the overuse of fishing grounds, water supplies, fossil fuels, available bandwidths for broad- cast, and many other resources. U? Let’s say the Unknown—how to take the pulse of its presence in our lives (disciplines: all). If this sounds impossible, at least one step comes fairly readily: beginning to chart one’s ignorance. Marlys Witte in the 1980s founded the program on medical ignorance at the College of Medicine, University of Arizona, with the broad goal of fostering not just a sharper sense of knowledge but also a deeper sense of ignorance. A key tool of the program, the ignorance map, offers several categories for sorting out the unknown: known unknowns, things one knows one doesn’t know; unknown unknowns, things one doesn’t know one doesn’t know; errors, things one thinks one knows but does not; unknown knowns, things one knows but doesn’t know it; taboos, dangerous, polluting, or forbidden kinds of knowledge; and denials, things one finds too painful to know, so one avoids knowing them. For V, I’ll use the Vietnam War treated as an exemplar (discipline: history, social studies). The Seven Seas of Knowledge 137 For W, Wealth, the role of wealth and poverty in the world, diverse kinds of wealth, Adam Smith’s eighteenth-century classic The Wealth of Nations, the Marxian view and its call for revolution, the insights of soci-ologist Max Weber, who at the beginning of the twentieth century drew connections between the Protestant and Puritan ethic and the growth of a generative capitalistic culture (disciplines: economics, social stud- ies, history). X is for Xenophobia, the all-too-human hot spot of millennia of trouble, the fear and often hatred of strangers, a deeply rooted pri- mate (not just human) impulse that everyone in the contemporary world should understand and seek to manage (disciplines: social stud- ies, global studies, history). This antagonistic mind-set colors human relations in far more diffuse and subtle ways than one might hope. An impressive body of research conducted by Harvard political scien- tist Robert Putnam, himself a staunch liberal with a prodiversity view, reveals that communities with greater ethnic diversity systematically show lower civic participation and higher distrust of neighbors—even neighbors who share one’s ethnicity—but not, paradoxically, higher intergroup conflict. People are just less civically engaged generally. Y is for, let’s say, Yeats, William Butler, Irish poet, author of “Among School Children” among many renowned poems (discipline: literature). Where, it can be asked, is the big understanding here? Remember that a big understanding need not stem from a conceptual system; it can grow from an exemplar, a figure such as Yeats who stands in illustration of what the forms and tones and music of poetry can do. Z is easy: Zen, one among many faiths but not the sort of faith Westerners imagine, perhaps not a faith at all in the Western sense. It is a variety of Buddhism, home of the logic-breaking intuition-cultivat- ing ko–an (What is the sound of one hand clapping?) (disciplines: reli- gious studies, global studies, social studies). Does a dog have Buddha nature? The lifeworthiness here includes insight of course, but poten- tially ethics and action, recognizing how you as an individual are easily entrapped by superficial attachments to the world. Do these examples A to Z have lifeworthy nature? As tossed on the table here, they are more like mentions in E. D. Hirsch’s dictionary 138 future wise of cultural literacy (a topic in chapter 2) than like well-explained big understandings and questions. However, the job of the moment is popping up opportunities, not elaborating. So lifeworthy nature? I’d say so, but argue about it. Substitute your own. The point is less that everyone would agree and more that reasonable candidates come read- ily to mind. What Good for Younger Learners? Aesthetics, metaphor, and tragedy are digestible comestibles for high schoolers perhaps, but lumpy fare for a fourth grader on down, or at least some might think so. Mathematical modeling? Pi in the sky. The entire agenda of big understandings sounds as though it should be rated, using the system for cinema—R for restricted and certainly not G for general audience including tots. That would be a shame. Don’t be too sure about those ratings. The heady impression is probably my fault because I’ve used high-end labels like aesthetics and sketched many of the possibilities at an older level, but junior versions of most of these ideas translate back through the years to basic understandings younger learners can get their heads around. When I think of aesthetics for younger learners, Debbie O’Hara comes to mind. Debbie was teaching kindergarten at the International School of Amsterdam. My colleagues and I had a chance to work with her and many others at various schools on making thinking visible, strategies that help enrich learning in the disciplines. One day, Debbie engaged her charges in sustained reflection on a work of abstract art from a twelfth grader in the same school. The work, a large canvas with a white background covered with small black and gray squiggles, was quite abstract. The youngsters had to “guess and say why”—make an observation, and give some evidence for it. Prompting them with the reason-seeking question, “What makes you say that?” and honoring their responses by jotting them down, Debbie got them to attend to this nonfigurative work a lot longer and more thoughtfully than most adults would. The Seven Seas of Knowledge 139 Here are some of their observations: ● A boy says, “I’m going to tell a funny thing. It’s about running I think.” “Can you tell me more?” Debbie prompts. The child replies, “These things have feet and they do like this,” and illus- trates the running with his fingers. ● A girl: “It reminds me of my mommy’s hair because they are gray and white and black.” ● A boy says that it has a lot of movement. It looks like it’s going quickly. ● A girl: “It looks like skipping.” “What makes you say that?” “The lines remind me of skipping and happiness.” “Why is that?” “I don’t know, but this just came to my mind.” The word aesthetics is nowhere in sight here (although I think it could be; the word is almost certainly more scary for adults than for kids), but issues of aesthetics are in play in the sensitive flow of engagement. What are we to make of this? What big questions might we ask ourselves? What’s interesting about it? Why do we think what we think about it? When I wonder about metaphor for younger learners, I’m reminded of Debbie O’Hara’s students again: they didn’t have any trouble gener- ating ideas like, “It looks like skipping.” And I think of Kiran Bansai, Nellie Gibson, and Corinne Kaplan at Bialik College, a pre-K through 12 independent school near Melbourne and another setting where it’s been a privilege to collaborate, drawing second graders into a range of reflections about themselves and the nature of self and family. One strategy, Color, Symbol, Image, asks children to code a situation in all three ways. These second graders are not daunted: “I chose the color light red because I like it when my cheeks go red and because I like it when my nana kisses me when she has red lipstick and when I am mad.” “You know how when there is a car accident on the side of the road and you see a circle of flowers where someone has been killed well that is my symbol for sadness.” 140 future wise Even tragedy may not be out of reach. Readers who went to school in the United States may recall their encounter with a poem long in the canon of American schooling and generally viewed as light entertain- ment: the 1888 poem “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Thayer. “Ulysses” it is not, but it entertainingly treats an episode from the popular sport of baseball, starting this way: The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day: The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play, And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. In trouble for sure, the Mudville fans vest their hopes in the mighty Casey, who a few stanzas later steps forward to save the day, albeit with a certain insouciance: And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air, And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped— “That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one!” the umpire said. Casey lets the next pitch go by in the same manner and aims for the last one. And strikes out. What a tragedy for Casey and Mudville! Well, come to think of it, the poem is about a tragedy: the hero suffers a fatal flaw, in this case pride, and falls into disaster because of it. “Casey at the Bat” is tragedy lite. When I encountered “Casey” as a school kid, I don’t recall any rich exploration of a tragedy-lite meaning. But it’s there to be mined. Why do the grand patterns of literature always have to be exemplified by the grand works? Youngsters can understand something of “pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” from “Casey.” I’m The Seven Seas of Knowledge 141 a believer in one of developmentalist Jerome Bruner’s best-known state- ments: “We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.” Tragedy for tots? Sure, in a junior version, why not! reimagining educaTion The conversation to have: Making the most of disciplinary knowledge for the learners and context. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning The main point of this chapter is straightforward and heartening for all of us: the familiar disciplines absolutely teem with lifewor- thy learning. Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning Conventional curricula proudly presume that they have cherry- picked the best of what the disciplines have to offer. But any- one who thinks hard about education will end up questioning this. We need a more adventurous conversation! Not only do con- ventional curricula commonly include many niche understand- ings, but they also neglect many strongly lifeworthy themes from the disciplines. Smart sampling for richness and range becomes essential. Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning If some of the rich content from disciplines seems too challeng- ing for younger learners, the principle of junior versions helps greatly. 142 future wise Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum The familiar disciplines offer us ample material for constructing a curriculum full of lifeworthy learning. However, that doesn’t mean we should stop there. Chapter 8 emphasizes the impor- tance of renewing and reframing the disciplines and explores alternatives to the disciplines for organizing curriculum. 7 Ways of Knowing Powerful Patterns of Thought from the Disciplines and Beyond In sprIng 1990, a new and unusual course broke the one-professor-per-lecture-hall tradition at Harvard University. Thinking about Thinking featured three of Harvard’s stars: Alan Dershowitz from the Law School, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, and philosopher Robert Nozick. The agenda was to lay thinking bare and reveal the deep pat- terns of academic inquiry. The course had grown out of one of those near- accidental moments of insight. Dershowitz had sat in on a class taught by Gould and noticed that the two of them looked at problems in very different ways. Why not bring the contrasts to light? The name of the game was debate. Each week brought its particu- lar topic, chosen from a flock of philosophical, social, and scientific themes. Each professor would offer an initial view. Then the three would have at it for a while, followed by general discussion with the audience. Drawn by the grand design and three icons of academe, stu- dents and professors alike poured in to enjoy and to learn. Rooms had to be shuffled at once to place course meetings in Science Center B, one of the largest halls available at Harvard. Only a small percentage of people in the audience were enrolled, but a much higher percentage were enthralled. As it turned out, the sessions featured not so much thinking about thinking as thinking about the topic of the week. Rarely did the three 143 144 future wise professors talk about thinking as such. Instead, they played the game of thought from their own disciplinary perspectives, giving all their fans a chance to compare and contrast. They demonstrated what it was to think like a legal scholar, like a paleontologist, and like a philosopher. The weekly sessions were a good reminder that big understandings and big questions are not just about disciplinary content. Disciplinary, cultural, and other styles of thinking are themselves lifeworthy learn- ing, styles to be understood conceptually but also practiced meaning- fully even by nonprofessionals just trying to engage the world around them toward insight, action, and ethics. Disciplinary and other styles of thinking correspond to an agenda that surfaces from time to time for precollege education, helping students to “think like an X”—a scientist or mathematician or historian or artist or similar roles, at least in a helpful junior version. The goal for this chapter is to take a close look at these stylistic kinds of lifeworthy learning; let’s call them ways of knowing. Here’s how we’ll go about it. We’ll explore Dershowitz, Gould, and Nozick further and then look at ways of knowing in general, followed by some more examples, and mixing in some ideas about their teaching. One caveat: in no way do the examples try to range across all the ways of knowing worth examin- ing, not even all the academic ones. That’s a book, not a chapter. Three Ways of Knowing Explanation and causality was the topic for the week of April 23. Nozick and Gould offered several comments during their solo bits, but Dershowitz put on the table what quickly became the focus of con- versation and controversy. His point of departure was a foundational principle of criminal jurisprudence: “The law always starts with a dead body.” In other words, the crime comes first. Without a crime, the law has nothing to do, but with a crime, the law tries to figure out who’s responsible and punish the guilty party. That’s okay as far as it goes, opined Dershowitz, but not really such a smart way to keep social order. Why wait until someone actually is Ways of Knowing 145 killed? Dershowitz suggested that the true crime should be “risk crea- tion.” Punishment should attach to the creation of risk, regardless of whether the perp succeeded. If Jack the Ripper had a homicidal intent and the plan to carry it forward, this would create risk, and Jack should receive due punishment. Let’s get would-be murderers while they are still would-be. If this seems odd, Dershowitz warned, we should remem- ber that the law already has taken steps in this direction. For instance, drunken driving and attempted murder count as crimes because of the risks they create, even without anyone being run over or done in. Philosopher Robert Nozick wasn’t convinced. He turned our intu- itions about guilt and innocence into an objection. Even when people find themselves involved in an innocent way in an accidental death, they tend to feel guilty. Apparently there is a deeply entrenched pattern in our reasoning about cause and responsibility, a pattern that says the actual outcome matters. Stephen Jay Gould seconded the point: feelings of responsibility direct us to what needs attention and reparation. (Today one could add that considerable research on nonhuman primates has established the broad presence of rudimentary moral intuitions.) Dershowitz would have none of this. Where one has no responsibil- ity, sentiments like guilt are simply misplaced. On the other hand, we should feel bad about creating risk irresponsibly, even if nothing unfortunate happens in consequence. The legal scholar admitted that emo- tions of guilt provide a kind of guide, but only a rough one. Really? The others were skeptical. Gould tossed an anecdote into the conversation, explaining how an elderly woman walking through the halls of Harvard had been knocked down by a door as someone came from the opposite direction. Wouldn’t that person feel terrible? Dershowitz challenged, “But you say to the person, ‘You shouldn’t feel terrible.’” Gould responded, “No, you should feel terrible, even though it was not your fault.” Along the same lines, Nozick later quipped, “So we should say to Oedipus, ‘Don’t worry that it was your father and your mother. That’s the way it goes.’ Well, if we said that, clearly we don’t understand Greek tragedy.” 146 future wise Nozick was referring to the legend of Oedipus. Oedipus’s father, the king of Thebes, heard a prophecy that he would be killed by his son, so he abandoned Oedipus, who was raised by foster parents with- out discovering his true identity. At maturity, Oedipus ended up killing his father, becoming king, and marrying his mother. His sins, although unknown to him at the time, led to the gods inflicting a wrathful plague on the people of Thebes. Upon discovering the truth, Oedipus tore out his eyes. Dershowitz confessed that indeed he didn’t understand Greek trag- edy: “Oedipus should have thought more carefully. He should have rent his garments instead, perhaps. He made a mistake. I’ll be damned if he has to make an admission of guilt by tearing his eyes out!” So the argument went on. There was no resolution, nor do we need one here. What fascinated me on this and other occasions was the way the three scholars’ styles of argument projected their own disciplinary commitments. Dershowitz often argued from a functionalist perspec- tive on the law: What kinds of laws do we need to foster the social good? Laws involving risk aversion might do a better job than laws that have to wait for a dead body. Nozick, the philosopher, often turned to the naturalistic meanings of terms, excavating their nuances, as here in his examination of moral intuitions. Gould, the evolutionist, often spoke in ways reflecting the possible evolutionary function of patterns of thought and behavior. This might lie behind our tendency to feel bad about unfortunate outcomes in which we were involved, even when we are not responsible. Perhaps we could have done something had we been a little more alert and thought ahead a little further. Such sentiments, even though they go beyond direct responsibility, would contribute to the survival of the species. The three made for a good weekly reminder that what it means to understand a discipline amounts to more than amassing information and solving standard problems. Each one displayed his fluency and finesse in a certain style of inquiry and argument. Alan Dershowitz, Robert Nozick, and Stephen Jay Gould all three in their respective dis- ciplines “got game.” The sessions were also a splendid reminder that in Ways of Knowing 147 today’s complicated world, solutions to problems do not so commonly sit within a single discipline but gain from interdisciplinary discourse. Ways of Knowing in General If Dershowitz, Nozick, and Gould got game, then what kind of game have they got? Looking across fields like mathematics, physics, history, literary studies, anthropology, and the various arts, the games certainly seem to contrast. Notice, for instance, what a different mission it is to make a case for something in mathematics (typically a matter of for- mal deductive proof), historical studies (typically a matter of evidence from original and near-contemporaneous sources, adjusted for possible biases), and physics (typically a matter of empirical experiments to test hypothesized models). The game gets clearer when we draw a rough line between content and style. Dershowitz brought to the room abundant information about criminal law—what it is, what it has been, where it came from, the different forms it takes. That information included examples of leg- islation against risk creation, like attempted murder and drunken driv- ing. However, information aside, there was also a question of style—the style of looking at the law as a kind of functional design in the service of society and asking how it should work. Besides the functional design perspective, the law includes a signature style for sorting out particular cases: legal argument grounded in the written law, precedents from its previous application, and common practices that sometimes gain the force of law, weaving all these together with deduction and analogies to argue the matter at hand for prosecution or defense. In general, different disciplines and subdisciplines, as well as dif- ferent professional areas and even cultures, bring into play somewhat distinctive ways of knowing. A more accurate, although not as graceful, phrase would be “ways of coming to know.” Another would be “ways of figuring things out” or “styles of inquiry.” For some connections to prior thinking, I’ve discussed the theme elsewhere under the phrases epistemic games or epistemes. Noel Entwistle 148 future wise in Scotland and his colleagues write about the inner logic of a subject or discipline and its ways of thinking and practicing. Alan Collins and William Ferguson write about epistemic forms and games, with forms referring to typical knowledge representations used (e.g., graphs and equations in mathematics) and games referring to how you use them. David Shaffer explores how certain computer games help students develop epistemic insight. In the context of the teaching for understanding framework dis- cussed in chapter 5, Veronica Boix Mansilla and Howard Gardner for- mulate four dimensions of understanding in a discipline: knowledge (good understanding of content), methods (how the discipline builds and tests knowledge), purposes (the discipline as a tool to explain, inter- pret, and operate on the world), and forms (facility with the symbol systems important to the discipline—for instance, the kinds of mathe- matics or writing or artistic expression). In Content Matters, edited by Stephanie McConachie and Anthony Petrosky, the contributors define a disciplinary literacy approach to improving student learning. They explore ways to help students develop a sense not just of the content of disciplines but how the disci- plines work, including how to read, reason, investigate, speak, and write toward learning and formulating complex content knowledge. They urge approaching this by learning on the diagonal— content knowledge and the habits of thinking appropriate to the discipline should grow in breadth and sophistication simultaneously, not putting off the latter. Throughout these and other resources, the basic message is more or less the same. Across the disciplines and professions and other areas of practice, there are contrasting tool kits for constructing and pursu- ing big understandings and questions. These tool kits in themselves involve big understandings and questions worth learning. Of course, it’s not as though our three exemplars — Dershowitz, Nozick, and Gould — were speaking Navajo, Latin, and Sanskrit. They remained comprehensible to one another, just as one musician’s style is comprehensible to another. In their conversations and debates, they easily braided their own ways of knowing into a collective whole that seemed to me generally greater than the sum of the parts, even though many disagreements remained — again, a plug for interdisciplinarity. Ways of Knowing 149 Nonetheless, in keeping with what they hoped for from Thinking about Thinking, their distinctive ways of knowing shone forth. There are also some common features to diverse ways of knowing. One is a general concern with coherence and consistency. Also, most ways of knowing display some concern with argument and evidence. That’s needed to show that a claim is true or a model adequately represents “the way things are” — although the particular methods differ significantly. Also, let’s recognize that there are important ways of knowing exer- cised quite outside academic disciplines — intuition, faith, perceptual discernment — as well as cultural slants to ways of knowing. Sometimes these have a place within the disciplines also. Finally, within a discipline, there can be some contention about what its ways of knowing are, as in an intricate literature on the fine points of scientific knowing. However, untangling all this can get com- plicated, so here let’s just focus on rough profiles of ways of knowing attached to a few different disciplines. What do these various ways of knowing look like, and how do they differ? One way to answer this is to look at four important kinds of work that a way of knowing does: describing, justifying, explaining, and applying. Any way of knowing describes situations in a certain manner, with a certain language, foregrounding certain kinds of features and representations (I’m using describes loosely here to include not only linguistic but also other kinds of representations, say equations, computer models, sketches, or painting); justifies claims, theories, and ideas with certain kinds of arguments and evidence and intuitive judgments favored over others; explains what it deals with in a similarly distinctive way; and has typical areas and manners of application. Try This Give this framework a try. Take a field you know well, and sketch to yourself briefly how that field typically describes situations, justifies claims and theories and ideas, explains phenomena, and gets applied in certain ways to certain areas. 150 future wise For an example, let’s turn back to Alan Dershowitz’s argument about risk creation one more time. How does Dershowitz describe, justify, explain, and apply within the legal paradigm? Dershowitz proposes risk creation as a deliberately provocative way of redescrib- ing situations that warrant legal intervention. Let us begin, the legal scholar urges, not with the crime itself, the usual point of departure, but with risk creation as an important category of potentially unlaw- ful activity. Dershowitz justifies this with a kind of social functionalism, a principle routinely applied in constructing laws. In this sense, the law is a kind of engineering science, dedicated to social engi- neering. As to explanation, Dershowitz’s position demands making sense of a range of situations where the notion of risk creation may seem odd, Oedipus Rex for instance, and of course any explanations have to be justified also. If we buy Dershowitz’s position, applications of risk creation would include further workable laws based on the concept. Dershowitz’s argument is a piece of legal scholarship occurring above the level of particular cases, but in the judicial consideration of a particular crime, one also finds a signature way of knowing. Description begins with the particular crime (a dead body?), examines who suffered what and who might have been at fault, and continues with the legalese we all know from TV dramas, if not from the insides of courtrooms. Justification involves testimony and forensic evidence, in the context of a calculated adversarial system that gives both sides a voice, and with a central commitment to the presumption of innocence. Explanation most centrally takes narrative form, a “theory of the crime”: who the players are, what happened, and why, as supported by the evidence. Application could be seen as the entire formal process of trial—the playing out of these general patterns of description, justification, and expla- nation toward a resolution in the particular case. Similar stories apply to other ways of knowing, as we’ll see below. So what does all this have to do with big understandings and big questions? Simply that the ways of knowing bundled into a discipline, the style of it all, constitute big understandings and big questions. They are among the most important ones we can learn. Ways of knowing Ways of Knowing 151 provide a perspective on the disciplines larger than simply mastering facts and routines or even understanding key concepts. To exercise and appreciate a discipline in a lifeworthy manner, deploying it flexibly out- side as well as within its typical boundaries, the learner needs to get the hang of the game. “But wait,” a skeptic might complain. “How often do I really need to think in a legal way, or a scientific way, or a mathematical way?” Well, junior versions come up all the time. When you watch a legal drama on TV, listen to a news report about medical findings, or read about the risks of population growth, having a sense of the relevant way of know- ing helps track what’s going on. Having a sense helps people under- stand the range and power, and the certainty and uncertainty, of ideas and results they hear about, even without probing the technicalities. Having a sense helps us to ask big questions that probe for more evi- dence or clearer explanation. Having a sense of several ways of knowing fosters a much broader view of human knowledge, where it comes from, and where it might go. It helps bridge the gap between what C. P. Snow, the British scientist and novelist, characterized in the late 1950s as “the two cultures” of today’s society, the sciences and humanities, and the skepticism and disdain they sometimes hold toward one another. Whether the cul- tural divide is all that great and whether it is intrinsic or permeable can be hotly contended. But without some understanding of the ways of knowing involved, one can’t even consider the debate intelligently, never mind participate in it. Perhaps most important, having a sense of the ways of knowing prepares for further learning. When people need to pick up a little more legal lore, science, or math, an idea of the way of knowing helps in doing so. In the course of life, here and there we often do need to pick up a little more of one thing and another, even if we have no grand profes- sional aspirations. Finally, various ways of knowing woven together help to inform all sorts of situations where life calls on people to think with care and insight. Ways of knowing deserve a closer look, taking stock of what they are like and what they are good for. 152 future wise Euclid’s Way Euclidean geometry has something of a reputation as the al Qaeda of the classroom, a small but threatening force with an alien philosophy and aggressive tendencies. Its formalisms, complexity, and challenges to learners’ insight are notorious. I suppose the good news for folks with such aversions is that Euclid’s way seems to be vanishing from many schools. That might be something to regret. Euclid’s way is one of the funda- mental ways of knowing we have for wresting truths out of the stubborn and disparate fabric of the universe. To be sure, mathematical truths are valid only relative to the definitions and axioms that lay the foundation of the mathematical system in question. However, even such relative truths delight with their beauty and rigor. And Euclidean geometry is one of the few subjects in the typical curriculum where learners have a chance to pick up this way of knowing (although there are some serious limitations with the way it is often handled). Euclid’s way is not the only mathematical approach to knowing. Another is mathematical modeling, discussed in the previous chap- ter. What Euclid gives us is the way of formal deductive proof — more broadly, conjecture and proof. Conjecture is where the ideas that you try to prove come from. Rigorous mathematics gets built by the machinery of proof, based on definitions, axioms, and previously proved theorems, and reaching toward broad generalizations about various mathemati- cal objects and systems. The most familiar example of a finding could be the classic Pythagorean theorem, which states that the sum of the squares of the two legs of a right triangle equals the square of the hypot- enuse. There are dozens of proofs of this fundamentally important insight. To get a clearer view of this, let’s consider how Euclid’s way describes, justifies, explains, and applies. Describing begins with defi- nitions declaring the logical properties of mathematical objects, as in: a circle is the locus of points equidistant from a given point. Although definitions are often inspired by an everyday sense of the mathematical object in question (say, circles), definitions have a stipulative nature. What the Ways of Knowing 153 definition says declares what the object is for purposes of formal inference. While certainly guided by perceptual intuitions, the geometer has to construct proofs depending solely on the designated formal proper- ties. Conclusions generally take the form of universal claims (“for every right triangle . . .”) and existence claims (“there is at least one nonright triangle such that . . .”), and the like. Euclid’s way of justifying involves formal deduction from the defi- nitions, axioms, and previously established theorems. One curious con- sequence is that counterargument figures much less in mathematics than in, say, the law. The adversarial method of the law makes little sense in mathematics. If there is a sound deductive proof establishing the Pythagorean theorem, there is not much point in having an attorney on the other side. Of course, deductive arguments can contain errors and invite critique, but this is very different from weighing evidence on one side and evidence on the other side to make a best judgment. Debates do occur in mathematical scholarship above the level of particular proofs, debates about what methods are appropriate for instance, and these have much more the character of two-sided argument. In Euclid’s way, explaining has a peculiar relationship to justify- ing. Mathematicians talk much more about proof than explanation. The gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer in the 1940s looked closely at mathematical reasoning and mathematical understanding. He con- trasted proofs having an explanatory nature with proofs that seemed more like tricks of logic. (There are plenty of both.) He emphasized how meaningful mathematical inquiry even at the elementary level should emphasize proofs that explain, not just deduce. Finally, the range of application of mathematical thought is impres- sive. The method of formal inference does good work in dozens of other fields: physics, engineering, economics, and beyond. Unfortunately, Euclidean geometry as conventionally taught does not necessarily develop learners’ sense of this mathematical way of knowing very far. A charming example of what can go wrong comes from a set of observations made a number of years ago by mathematics educator Daniel Chazen. He asked students of geometry a couple of big questions about how it all worked. “Suppose,” he said, “we were to 154 future wise prove a theorem. If you look really hard, do you think you might find exceptions, examples where the theorem went wrong?” “Sure,” many of his respondents answered. “If you look really hard, you might.” He had another question too: “Now suppose we had an idea about what might be a theorem, something that looks promising. And sup- pose we checked out several very different examples and they all held up. Could we really be confident that the theorem is true?” “Sure,” said many of his interviewees again. Anyone who has a sense of Euclid’s way will recognize how very off- track these answers are. For the first, the whole point of logical proof is to establish a proposition always and forever. If the proof is formally correct, exceptions are impossible. All the looking in the world will not generate a single one. For the second, a central caution of Euclid’s way is that examples are never as good as formal proof. You may find that a proposition holds up for several different examples and then get bushwhacked tomorrow by another weirder example. Formal proof guards against that prospect. Let me add that the threat is quite real. It’s common to find exceptions to what look like promising generalizations, and the craft of formal mathematics includes hunting for such exceptions. When you find one, it shows the proposition to be false and saves you from wasting time hunting for a proof. Bacon’s Way The learners Daniel Chazen interviewed might be mistaken about Euclid’s way, but they certainly aren’t talking nonsense. They have someone else’s way in mind. It’s a rough version of empirical science, where one has a hypothesis and does experiments to check. Let’s call it Bacon’s way, after Francis Bacon, who articulated a ver- sion of the scientific method in his 1620 Novum organum scientiarum (New Instrument of Science). Bacon’s way begins with a hypothesis, a generalization based on observations and thought. You think it might Ways of Knowing 155 be true, but you are not sure yet. The word hypothesis tells the story. The Greek root hypo means under, as in hypodermic (under the skin). Thesis is what’s confidently asserted. In other words, a hypothesis is less than a thesis. It needs evidence and doesn’t have much yet. If the hypothesis plays well in a range of circumstances, we provi- sionally accept it as confirmed. But we’re cautious: we recognize that discrepancies may emerge later that limit its range of application. This is what the geometry students thought might happen to a theorem that had been proved. They were treating it more according to Bacon’s way, where things could still go wrong even after you were pretty sure, than according to Euclid’s way, where proven is proven. So what is Bacon’s way in more detail? A huge literature from the history and philosophy of science targets complicated issues about just how Bacon’s way works or should work, so inevitably this will be a little crude. As to describing, whereas mathematics ultimately deals with things as defined (a circle as the locus of points equidistant from a given point), the hard and soft sciences strive to describe the things of the world (the orbits of the planets, atoms, black holes, cul- tures, attitudes, economic patterns). Scientists employ measurements, equations, thick description, and other kinds of representations to describe these things. One twist is that many of the things of science cannot be seen or touched or indeed observed in any direct way. We can examine directly the trajectory of a thrown ball or the behavior of a gyroscope, but not black holes and atoms and repressed traumas, and not even the orbits of the planets, which after all are inferred from the positions of bright spots in the sky. Scientists posit black holes, atoms, repressed traumas, and orbits for explanatory purposes, and we come to think of them as real to the extent that the story woven around them holds up. That leads into justifying. In contrast to Euclid’s way, which puts looking at the logic in the foreground, Bacon’s way puts looking at the world in the foreground. A theory yields predictions about what we should see, and we look to see whether we see it. The details of this are messy, but a key principle, emphasized by philosopher of science Karl Popper, is falsifiability or disconfirmability. Writing in 1934 on 156 future wise The Logic of Scientific Discovery ( Logik der Forschung), Popper argued that establishing a theory requires not merely rounding up cases where it works but also putting it at risk, examining situations where the theory makes specific predictions that might get disconfirmed. Accordingly, good research scientists strive to set up experiments that could dash their favorite theories while rooting for the theories to survive. Explaining in science typically takes the form of inference from broad overarching principles (Newton’s laws, the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, psychological mechanisms, cultural biases) to account for special cases. For instance, Newton famously explained the orbits of the planets by deducing them from his law of gravi- tation and other principles. Whereas in mathematics, proof folds justification and explanation together, explanation and justification stand somewhat apart in the sciences, with justification including the step of looking carefully at the world to see whether it aligns with prediction. Finally, application ranges richly from simply explaining things we are curious about to the many fruits of science-informed engineering. I mentioned how those students of geometry often appear to have Bacon’s way in mind more than Euclid’s way. But most likely, they would not have a clear vision of Bacon’s way either. Contrary to Popper’s principle of falsification, research on reasoning suggests that people who casually set out to test a proposition against the world often simply look for positive instances. For example, citizens intuitively inclined to support a particular political figure will look for situations where the figure’s strategies and policies have gone well. Skeptics will look for situations where those strategies and policies have failed. Neither will gather much data on the other side of the case. Given twenty instances, half positive and half negative, advocates will happily focus on the positive ones and skeptics on the negative ones, either neglecting or explaining away the other half, both par- ties wondering how their counterparts could be so deluded. A better practice is to look hard for counterevidence to one’s favorite hypothe- ses — while hoping one doesn’t find it. Ways of Knowing 157 Ways of Learning Ways of Knowing So how can learners get a better sense of Euclid’s way or Bacon’s way or other ways of knowing for that matter? And how can they get beyond just an intellectual sense toward an active operational sense, genuinely lifeready? One approach is simply to address such matters point-blank. For example, the International Baccalaureate organization, a worldwide educational consortium, has maintained a Theory of Knowledge course for a number of years as part of its diploma program. The course deals directly with the character of knowledge across the disciplines and dif- ferent ways of knowing. Such a frontal approach can take many forms when there is room for it in a curriculum. And there probably should be room more often. Another approach is to do more within the teaching of the dis- ciplines themselves. The seductive avenue here is simply more of the same: more Euclidean geometry, more empirical science, more what- ever else. But it’s not so clear that more of the same does the job. Remember that Daniel Chazen was interviewing geometry students already immersed in the discipline. No doubt they could do many of the exercises, but they certainly were missing some important rules of the game. This is common across the curriculum, with the problem appar- ently some variant of the classic not being able to see the forest for the trees. Conventional study, particularly precollege, travels down among the trees, allowing learners to miss significant features of the overall way of knowing. Typical science instruction often includes learning about the scientific method, but learning about is not the same as learning to do, and even less taking to heart. Learning about a way of knowing doesn’t accomplish that critical transition from topic to tool discussed in chapter 5, making it lifeready. The elementary study of geometry is almost unique in putting method of justification center stage, with two column proofs that pair each inference in the left column with a defi- nition, axiom, or previous result in the right. Still, apparently for many learners, that isn’t enough. 158 future wise Relatedly, when learners do get involved in Euclid’s way or Bacon’s way, the focus tends to fall on verification rather than discovery. I men- tioned that Euclid’s way is better understood as conjecture and proof than proof alone. A conjecture about a possible mathematical truth is like a hypothesis: you get to it through observation and speculation. But from then on, Euclid’s way and Bacon’s way take different direc- tions. Following Bacon, you would try to verify the conjecture by look- ing for empirical evidence. Following Euclid, you would try to verify it by constructing a formal proof (you might, however, look at more cases to build your confidence before going to the trouble of attempting a proof ). To get the hang of Euclid’s or Bacon’s way, learners need to be invited into the process of conjecture and hypothesis making rather than just proof and evidence. For one example, chapter 4, exploring big questions, touched on mathematics educator Stephen Brown’s generative question: “What if not?” That is, what if customary premises don’t hold? Then can any- thing be concluded in the neighborhood of the original proposition? Chapter 4 looked quickly at the well-known result that the sum of the interior angles of any triangle is 180 degrees, going on to note that “What if not?” is a generative question across many disciplines. Try This Give “What if not?” a try. Choose some field or area of knowledge you know pretty well, select some explicit or tacit assumption it tends to make that seems perhaps questionable, and ask, “What if not?” Speculate on what might follow from that. A number of years ago, science education researcher Judah Schwartz set out to do something about conjecture for geometry. He developed a computer aid for the discovery process, the Geometric Supposer. Using the Supposer, students could explore geometric arrangements fluently and precisely, constructing variants of figures, inserting Ways of Knowing 159 parallels, dropping perpendiculars, and making the other moves typical of geometric construction, always with an eye for patterns that might turn into theorems. His point was that paper and pencil made a poor medium for the exploratory side of geometry; it was too clumsy, slow, and inaccurate. Students readily became engaged with the Supposer, discovering possible theorems, exploring them to gain some confi- dence, and then moving on to attempt proofs. Several software pack- ages today do broadly the same sort of thing. Besides getting conjecture into the picture, yet another approach notes that Euclidean geometry is not the only home for Euclid’s way. It belongs to the larger range of mathematics. The method of formal proof figures in algebra, statistics, number theory, and just about every other kind of mathematics. For example, it’s relatively easy to explore Euclid’s way around some elementary but important properties of the natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, and on up. A little bit of this could go a long way. It’s unlikely that learners will come to understand Euclid’s way from just one instance, Euclidean geometry. Participating in the same game on more than one field makes the general shape of the game much clearer. Bacon’s way cuts across the sciences and continues across virtually any discipline that makes empirically grounded claims. For instance, anyone engaged in literary interpretation needs an eye out not just for supportive evidence but counterevidence in the text and context of the work. Such a turn of mind cannot be taken for granted. In a pen- etrating 1929 book, Practical Criticism, I. A. Richards wrote about the difficulty his university students had with that sort of challenge. They would advance interpretations that made sense of particular passages in poems with little attention to the rest of the poem. Somehow, some account of something seemed to them to be good enough. Not only did comprehensive interpretations evade their reach but often their will; they just didn’t see the need. Science and literature may seem like strange bedmates here. But the two of them together with the connections made explicit should breed a deeper understanding of Bacon’s way. You only truly know the face of someone you look at more than once in different light. 160 future wise Junior Ways of Knowing Perhaps this all sounds fine for an audience of college students, and even approachable for secondary school students. However, it probably seems inaccessibly esoteric for elementary school learners. Maybe not! I’ve mentioned a couple of times that ways of knowing can come in junior versions, like almost anything else we might like youngsters to learn. Remember how at the end of the previous chapter, even as heavy a topic as tragedy could prove approachable to younger children in a junior version—through the poem “Casey at the Bat,” for instance. The story is much the same for ways of knowing. For one example, I know a teacher who engaged her third-grade stu- dents in, of all things, number theory. Caity Faiman, of Bialik College, an independent school near Melbourne, devised ways to involve young students in making conjectures about patterns in numbers and explored with them how they might test those conjectures. The conjectures were not very sophisticated and the ideas about proof and evidence not very fancy, but the point is that these students were making a start, and doing so with some enthusiasm. So, yes, it can be done in the earlier years. And a stronger message might be warranted: not only it can, but also it should. Getting a sense of important ways of knowing in junior versions might be a particularly precious learning agenda for elementary school for two reasons. First, ways of knowing in junior versions are not terribly complex. In fact, the basic patterns of knowing characteristic of many disciplines are considerably simpler than the more technical concepts from those disciplines that students typically study by the time they get to second- ary school. The most basic ideas and patterns of mathematical conjec- ture and proof, for example, are considerably simpler than quadratic equations or multiple linear equations. Second, having a sense of a dis- cipline’s way of knowing empowers learning, because the whole disci- pline makes more sense. If all that seems right, there is still another natural concern: “Yes, but teachers don’t know about these ways of knowing.” But some do. For many, the knowledge is tacit and simply needs to be surfaced because Ways of Knowing 161 they don’t know what they know. And anyhow, the point made above for children applies even more so to teachers: ways of knowing in their basics are just not that hard. Given an opportunity and some guidance, teachers can easily get on top of them. We could benefit today’s learners hugely by paying more attention to ways of knowing. With that in mind, let’s look at some further ways of knowing. Newton’s Way Remember that Euclid’s way is only one side of mathematical know- ing. The rest of it is mathematical modeling, mentioned in the previ- ous chapter and earlier. Mathematical modeling starts with a situation (water needs, traffic flow and traffic jams, the observed motion of the planets, boom and bust patterns in the economy), attempts to con- struct a mathematical representation of the situation, uses mathe- matical inference to draw out implications and predictions, and turns back to the world (e.g., a plan for water management, does traffic really behave that way). The hard sciences make much of mathematics in just this manner. We could call it Newton’s way, remembering again how seventeenth-century mathematical physicist Isaac Newton mod- eled the orbits of the planets using his law of gravitation. In general, Newton’s way of mathematical modeling interwoven with Bacon’s way of looking at the world makes up the fabric of scientific inquiry. But Newton’s way does not just serve science for the construction of grand theories. It also serves engineering, accountancy, and other areas to solve specific problems. Summing up, the point of learning some mathematics goes beyond the handy mechanics of arithmetic, geometry, or algebra. Taught in the right way, learning in mathematics cultivates tremendously powerful big understandings and questions beyond the level of content, the great patterns of inquiry of Euclid’s way and Newton’s way. A style of learning science that includes ample attention to ways of knowing can develop learners’ sense of Newton’s way and Bacon’s way. 162 future wise If all this seems beyond the intellectual horizon of most students, think again. Remember that students do not have to get acquainted with Euclid’s way by struggling with the four-color theorem (a famous mathematical conjecture unproven for many years but now estab- lished). They do not have to make friends with Bacon’s way by testing the theory of relativity or with Newton’s way by modeling the orbits of the planets. The teaching of very elementary Euclidean geometry in a style that includes conjecture as well as proof is one approach to intro- ducing Euclid’s way. Project-based learning in mathematics or science, which, for instance, might ask students to model traffic flow in their neighborhood or predict water needs in their community over the next twenty years, can involve learners in the full form of Newton’s way with reasonably tractable content. In other words, Euclid’s way, Newton’s way, and Bacon’s way seem unapproachable only because we tend to think of them in terms of their greatest hits—the big-name theories and most fundamental findings. Indeed, much of the typical curriculum tends to be constructed around the greatest hits. The greatest hits may be important as things to know, but they are not so often the best entry points for getting the hang of ways of knowing. Thucydides’ Way What Happened at Lexington Green is a punchy piece of history instruction I’ve always admired for its artful choices. Written by Peter Bennett, the unit focuses on “the shot heard round the world,” the first shot of the American Revolution, April 19, 1775. The key question is, “Who fired first?”—not “Which person?” but “Which side?” This is not really a historical big question, more of a niche question. Who fired the first shot does not matter very much. It’s not as though that side should therefore be blamed for the war or that the war would not have happened had no one pulled the trigger by the 19th of April in ’75. Nonetheless, the question, whose real point is to focus students on problems of historical evidence, is provocative. Ways of Knowing 163 Indeed, there is evidence on the point in the form of testimonials from several sources. Bennett includes these in the unit. What’s tricky is that the testimonials conflict with one another and invite skepticism in other ways. For example, one colonial account, reporting that the British started it, turns out to have been written fifty years after the event. How much is it to be trusted? A British account actually acknowledged the British fired the first shot, and usually people are more to be trusted when they testify to something contrary to their own interests, so perhaps this is right. However, we discover that the British witness fingered his fellow soldiers while in American captivity. His interest at that moment might have been to keep on good terms with his American guards. Students engage these issues as they probe what actually happened on Lexington Green, just a few miles but over two hundred years from where I am writing these words. Bacon’s way is showing its face here, with the focus on empirical evidence to test hypotheses (the British did it, the Americans did it). But remembering that justification is a key dimension of ways of knowing, justification in historical inquiry is a somewhat different game than in science. Historical events locate themselves inconveniently in the past, so experiment is impossible. Also, unlike the test tubes and electrical apparatus of the scientific laboratory, historical voices often have agen- das of their own: publics to serve, ideologies to promote, sins to deny, patrons to patronize. Moreover, whereas laboratory experiments can be designed to reveal and record events with accuracy, the historian largely looks to people’s reports in written documents, which, bias aside, can suffer many distortions of perception and memory. In other words, history’s way of knowing is really a way of its own. We could call it Thucydides’ way. Thucydides is a mouthful compared to Euclid, Bacon, and Newton, but he deserves to be remembered as perhaps the first historian in the modern sense. Thucydides was an Athenian who lived in the lat- ter part of the fifth century BCE. He was a general who figured in the Peloponnesian Wars, a series of wars between Athens and its allies on the one hand and Sparta and its allies on the other that troubled Greece from 431 to 404 BCE. Discredited early on for failing to win a crucial 164 future wise battle, although it appears he did not even arrive until the battle was over, he was exiled from Athens. Free to travel around the regions representing both sides in the con- flict, he turned a problem into an opportunity and wrote the classic of history, The Peloponnesian Wars. The account is lauded for its use of evidence from interviews and written reports. It’s praised for its objective stance, not demonizing one side and “angelizing” the other, recog- nizing atrocities, and acknowledging the gritty role of power politics. Thucydides also assiduously avoids attributing historical events to interventions by the gods, seeking rather the causes in human affairs. I already mentioned something about how historical inquiry jus- tifies. How does it describe, explain, and handle applications? History and science, although both empirical, reach in rather different direc- tions for their proudest products. Whereas science zooms back for the grandest, most general laws and principles, history zooms in to offer rich accounts of pivotal particulars: how the Industrial Revolution developed and why in the West and not in the East, or how it came about that the American colonials managed to win the Revolutionary War against mighty England, and how close a call it was. Whereas hard science profiles the world with quantitative measures, history turns to rich description: Just what happened according to the skeptically fil- tered sources, and when, and why? Turning to explanation, certainly historical explanation invokes general principles, for instance, economic factors, the influences of key power groups, or the shaping effect of regional geography. However, these general principles do not usually have the status of anything like laws of nature. Principles of historical explanation inform the weave of a historical narrative more as individual human motives inform the weave of a novel’s plot, not forcing events to hap- pen exactly as they did but illuminating why it makes sense that they would have fallen out that way. Also, whereas hard science strives for the one true account of phenomena, although often with controversy, history acknowledges that different historical narratives represent- ing distinctive perspectives can prove illuminating. There is no sin- gular history of a complex event. In both of these respects, historical Ways of Knowing 165 explanation is much more like literary or anthropological explanation than explanation in the hard sciences. Applications of historical knowledge (say, about the Vietnam War, our earlier example) to contemporary political choices have the same perspectival nature. One is always applying loose principles and reason- ing by analogy in a highly interpretive manner to try to fathom the con- sequences of negotiating or not negotiating, invading or not invading, blockading or not blockading, allying or not allying. Sadly, Thucydides’ way does not show up very much in the conven- tional teaching of history. Tom Holt characterizes the business-as-usual version of history instruction that most of us experienced through the words of a student: it’s “other people’s facts.” Holt is the author of a compelling pamphlet, Thinking Historically: Narrative, Imagination, and Understanding, which offers a different view of what the learning of history might be like. Holt’s basic tenet is that students need to be inducted into some reasonable version of the practice of historical inquiry. This art and craft involves interpreting original sources, examining them critically for their likely biases, piecing together diverse sources, and from it all constructing historical narrative, the distinctive prod- uct of historical inquiry, an account of what happened first and then next and after that, and why. There is no suggestion that each historical event has its one right narrative. On the contrary, shades of ambiguity always color historical inquiry. Narrative and counternarrative thrive in the game. More typically, students are asked to learn textbook narratives con- structed by others that lay out major events and the parts played in them by important people, with little life or texture to the accounts. Although such sources may offer carefully crafted and balanced per- spectives, Holt warns that they tend to be lifeless. For one thing, they keep the lid on a cauldron of big questions. Why did this come about and not that? Is it true that these people did not have alternatives? What if this person had acted otherwise? How can we be confident that the announced intentions of this action were the real ones? Even the most evenhanded textbook account is a triumph of the declarative sentence over the interrogative sentence. 166 future wise Holt invites us to imagine a different learning of history, where students engage big questions that bring alive the facts and events, interpret supposedly simple facts, confront conflicts of values in deal- ing with sources that express unpopular values, interrogate evidence skeptically, and read conflicting narratives. Holt pictures what learners would be doing: What if they were allowed to examine the raw materials of histori- cal research on their own and come up with their own compelling accounts of the “facts”? What if they were regularly asked to take the fragmentary and incomplete evidence of history and construct a narrative that pursued a question and made a point? What if each student historian were allowed to encounter competing narratives about that same event? (p. 8) And later: The professional historian is trained to build a historical narrative from traces and leavings by applying disciplined intuition and analy- sis. I would argue that high school students could and should do the same. (p. 31) Byways and Highways Tom Holt’s vision of the teaching of history is a lively one. It shames the approach of a sack full of facts and celebrates cultivating historical thinking, not just knowledge of history. Holt’s vision puts the histori- cal way of knowing front and center, an agenda that can be multiplied across the disciplines, encouraging learners to think scientifically, mathematically, from a literary perspective, and more. So what would it look like to follow through, not only for history but also for other disciplines? Holt gives us a picture for history: stu- dents working thoughtfully with original source materials to formulate and defend their own interpretations. In mathematics, one prospect is Ways of Knowing 167 an innovative spin on Euclidean geometry, enriched with the process of conjecture, not just the process of proof. In science, one prospect is project-based learning, where students confront a complex but reason- ably accessible phenomenon and build and test models to explain it. Note that this is a far cry from standard science labs, which are more like following recipes to bake familiar kinds of cakes. Then there’s a further agenda: familiarity with multiple ways of knowing in junior versions sets the stage for collaborative interdisci- plinary thinking in the classroom and beyond. Superficial versions of this in classrooms around the world simply toss content from multiple disciplines into a bag and shake. But real interdisciplinary work, even in junior form, requires learners with some sense of how the contributing ways of knowing work. In other words, we want learning by doing, learning to play the game by playing the game of the discipline and later putting games from different disciplines together, all part of lifereadiness. I have three added thoughts about how to do this. The first one I have mentioned before: it’s unlikely that learners will pick up a way of knowing from a single experience on a single topic. Mathematical conjecture and proof, as well as mathematical mode- ling, will become more comfortable and compelling with several for- ays across different kinds of mathematics. History’s way of knowing will shine clearer and brighter when students look at several historical episodes from different periods with different sorts of big questions in mind. Second, learners are much more likely to pick up a way of knowing through some direct talk about it. There could be discussions of how a discipline describes, justifies, explains, and gets applied. It’s all the better if the exploration is comparative, looking across disciplines rather than singling out only one, because the contrasts between disciplines bring into high relief how various ways of knowing work. Third, let’s always remember that ways of knowing rooted in the disciplines are neither the beginning nor the end of how we code the world. The common sense (but often not common enough) of everyday affairs figures crucially in our lives. Religious and meditative 168 future wise experiences have their place. The refined perceptions of the experienced musician, hunter, sportsperson, negotiator, painter, or dancer reach well beyond anything a nonparticipant could discern. How such ways of knowing work also deserves a presence. So, fine as far as it goes, but how far should it go? One can easily imagine what a conservative skeptic might say about Holt’s vision and its kin: All well and good to have a little bit of this here and there. But after all, most of the students are not going to become historians. We do hope that they will become informed and thoughtful citizens, familiar with the rise of our nation. For this, they need a rich fund of background knowledge and big ideas. Now, how much of that are they going to get if, for 90 percent of their learning time, they disap- pear down the rabbit hole of historical inquiry, which is pretty much an endless warren? The skeptic has a point. If we imagine a program in history or science or literature or mathematics entirely given over to thinking- like-a-whomever (in appropriately junior versions), not only general background but many content-centered big understandings and big questions might find themselves with no room to breathe. Working with the particulars of historical data—eyewitness testimonials about a particular incident, lists of household possessions, immigration records—for sure is a dive down a rabbit hole of specific detail about a specific matter. The way of knowing becomes much clearer and more fluent, but there’s less room for what gets known. Similarly, accessible engagement in scientific hypothesis formu- lation and testing with simple equipment involves considerable time- consuming attention to detail. The way of knowing gains at the cost of how much content gets known. I complained earlier that curriculum generally is organized around a discipline’s greatest hits. The greatest hits often have a technical character that makes the way of knowing less accessible. But after all, there is a point to the greatest hits. They need some airtime too. Ways of Knowing 169 I can’t imagine that Tom Holt would actually allow rabbit hole mania. I can’t imagine anyone would ever teach history as nothing but pouring through eyewitness testimonials and lists of household pos- sessions and immigration records. A balance would be struck or, better than a balance, a synthesis where serious attention to ways of knowing with the occasional rabbit hole gets woven together with more pano- ramic patterns of thought and content. If education were all rabbit holes—deep dives into particulars—there wouldn’t be any terra firma of general acquaintance with the best of the discipline. Right now, though, the problem is not too many rabbit holes but rather too few. For the sake of lifeworthy learning, we should look toward more rabbit holes in students’ study of history, science, literature, and everything else. This would not only make disciplinary knowledge more meaningful but also equip learners to roam the wide world more lifeready to engage its mysteries. reimagining educaTion The conversation to have: Building understanding of ways of knowing for the learners and context. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning Besides content, the disciplines give us another powerful kind of big understanding: their ways of knowing. Any discipline brings characteristic manners of describing situations, justifying claims and theories and ideas, explaining phenomena, and get- ting applied in particular ways to particular areas. These differ greatly from discipline to discipline. The content and skills of a discipline make much more sense in light of its ways of knowing, grounding deeper learning. Our conversation needs to acknowl- edge the importance of ways of knowing. 170 future wise Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning For once in this exploration of what’s worth learning, we are not faced with a crisis of choice demanding extreme selectivity. To be sure, within disciplines there can be complicated technical debates about nuanced alternatives in the ways of knowing. However, learners in basic education don’t have to worry about these much. There is no reason that every learner cannot develop some sense of and comfort with the ways of knowing of a range of disciplines. Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning Here is more good news: ways of knowing, at least in junior ver- sions, are not really that complicated. In structure, they are a lot simpler than much of the content we expect students to learn. For instance, in mathematics, basic patterns of modeling and basic patterns of conjecture and proof are much simpler than ele- mentary algebra. Moreover, having a sense of and comfort with the ways of knowing of a discipline makes deeper learning in the discipline easier and more interesting. So let’s commit ourselves to this conversation: How can building an understanding of a discipline’s way of knowing fig- ure centrally in teaching the discipline? This does not mean skew- ing instruction sharply away from content and toward process. It simply means that as learners engage content, they regularly recognize and reflect on the ways of knowing of the discipline and contrasts with other disciplines. Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum Typical education, when it addresses ways of knowing at all, gen- erally treats them as advanced topics. But we don’t have to make it that hard. Because basic ways of knowing are relatively simple and accessible, they can get introduced in the first years of educa- tion in appropriately junior versions, supporting and motivating learners from then on. 8 Buckets of Knowledge Organizing Content across the Years of Education In 1995, new York UnIversItY medIa theorIst and socIal crItIc neIl Postman published a call to arms for teaching and learning. He called it The End of Education. Sounds grim. However, by end, the persistently playful Postman did not mean the demise of education but rather its purpose. Postman envisioned a pattern of education significantly repur- posed. He urged that educational methods, a mere “engineering prob- lem,” had received lavish attention but educational ends had not. The fundamental goals and purposes of education were dismayingly neglected and confused. Such commonly bruited goals as preparation for the workplace or familiarity with technologies were “false gods” that trivialized the educational enterprise. Postman had a different idea. His vision was to reorganize much of schooling around grand narratives—continuing strands of learning and inquiry progressing through several grades. A grand narrative would provide a meeting place for ideas from the disciplines and for probing fundamental questions about our lives on this planet. Postman’s stand- ards for a good grand narrative were high: it should tell us about who we are, provide generative guidance for moral questions, and help to explain the deep mysteries of our world. Postman had no canonical list of these grand narratives, urging educators to create their own. However, he developed several exam- ples to illustrate the idea. One was “Spaceship Earth.” Pursuing this 171 172 future wise theme, students would recognize the collective dilemma of humankind occupying a small planet, trying to get along but plagued by conflict, disturbing the ecology, and rapidly consuming the natural resources. Students would explore the challenges from multiple disciplinary per- spectives, developing big understandings and big questions with their richness of insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. For another grand narrative, Postman suggested “The Fallen Angel,” a look at humanity in its strengths but also examining human failing and weakness—limits of foresight, pathologies of violent conflict and genocide, grievous stumbles around reasoning and decision making, and more. So imagine the scene: Jack and Jill come home from school one afternoon. Mom asks, “Well, what did you study today?” Jack and Jill reply in unison, “The fallen angel.” And they explain a little bit about it. So Mom says, “But what about math?” “Oh, that’s part of the fallen angel.” “But what about history?” “Oh, that’s part of the fallen angel too.” It’s not hard to envision Mom a few minutes later on the phone to the principal or the head of the school board. That’s how different Postman’s proposal is. Everything seems to get turned upside down. The traditional disciplines have somehow been kidnapped by a strange theme with alarmingly critical overtones. What’s going on here? The Bucket Problem Whatever you think of Postman’s idea in particular, Postman has company. Many educators over the last decades have suggested new schemes for organizing learners’ time around broad categories of con- tent. Chapter 6 noted how the familiar disciplines give us a “bucket sys- tem” used throughout schooling. Postman and others have suggested new bucket systems. With what’s worth learning always on our minds, we have to ask what other bucket systems might have to offer. Buckets of Knowledge 173 The question gains more urgency from the expanding universe of what’s seen as worth learning. Remember those six trends in many innovative schools noted in the first chapter: beyond basic skills to twenty-first-century skills and related ideas; beyond the traditional dis- ciplines to new, hybrid, and less familiar disciplines; beyond discrete disciplines to interdisciplinary topics and problems; beyond the local to global perspectives, problems, and studies; beyond academic learning to connecting with life situations; beyond prescribed content to more flexible choice. These six beyonds challenge the tidy boundaries of the traditional disciplines. The question also gains urgency from the shortfalls of the tradi- tional hierarchical structure of education mapped in chapter 2. This structure, defining effective learning as learning effectively what the system offers, lets the standard bucket system continue indifferent to the many worlds of the small world paradox: as our collective world gets smaller, the worlds we individually engage become more numerous and complex. It lets the standard bucket system continue untroubled by the expanding universe of what’s worth learning. However, a net- work structure attentive to interdisciplinary themes and diverse local, regional, and global problems challenges whether the standard bucket system can serve us well. So here’s the bucket problem: What’s a better bucket system? Should we be satisfied with the buckets of the traditional disciplines, or should we be looking for very different sorts of bucket systems, maybe something like Postman’s? Good answers would count for a lot here. Consider how any reason- able bucket system contributes to education. It helps to define what’s worth learning at a very broad categorical level. It declares what content learners will study. It keeps education organized not only within years but also across years. It achieves some alignment of education among different schools within communities, states, and nations, so that fam- ilies that move around don’t encounter completely different worlds of learning. So what’s a better bucket system? Before getting into that, we should clarify what this question is not about. 174 future wise It’s tempting to suppose that a good bucket system with a visionary turn settles what’s worth learning. Not quite. Certainly it contributes. However, many more choices about what’s worth learning take place at the topic level, down inside the buckets. A good bucket system still leaves a great deal to do. Moreover, a rather ordinary bucket system at the top level still might have marvelously lifeworthy topics down inside the buckets. It’s also tempting to suppose that a good bucket system at the level of policy translates readily into lifeworthy and lifeready learning on the ground. Not so! The stroll from the imposing halls and offices of an enlightened Department or Ministry of Education to a nearby school to see what’s really going on is often a disappointing one. What’s sup- posed to be happening often simply isn’t happening. What’s actually happening is a much diluted version of the vision. It’s also tempting to suppose that skills such as critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, and so on—often called twenty-first- century skills, the first of the six beyonds—would play a key role in good bucket systems. Not so much. Bucket systems as defined here are content organizers, but such skills are not typically taught as content. Frameworks promoting them do not typically suggest that they take up class periods. Rather, such skills get infused throughout a range of learning experiences in different buckets. Accordingly, we’ll take a close look at twenty-first-century skills and related ideas in the next chapter rather than trying to fit them into the bucket problem. Finally, it’s tempting to hope we could find a “best” bucket system. Not really. Just as with the earlier discussions in this book, what’s realistic is to find criteria that sort out better bucket systems from worse ones without expecting a single all-time winner. Let’s begin by discussing bucket systems built directly on the tra- ditional disciplines, continue to bucket systems that redescribe and regroup the traditional disciplines in various ways, and proceed to bucket systems that foreground categories quite different from those of the traditional disciplines, as with Neil Postman’s suggestion. Then we can stand back and compare them. Buckets of Knowledge 175 Renewing the Disciplines So what’s a better bucket system? Making the most of the disciplines was the focus of chapters 6 and 7. The familiar disciplines certainly offer an attractive bucket system, but only with some reworking. The versions taught in schools are too often the old story plumped up with recent detail, the same overfamiliar shape and more unwieldy than ever before. Meanwhile, in the world of scholarship, some disciplines have found fresh wellsprings of insight and excitement as hybrid disciplines have emerged. Something more is needed than adding another decade’s worth of facts. What might that something more look like? In the United States, one of the most conspicuous recent efforts to renew the disciplines is the Common Core State Standards Initiative— Common Core for short. The idea is to create common achievement standards K–12 in two areas, English language arts and mathematics. As I write, the standards have been established, exams are becoming available, and most states have signed up to participate. Common Core is not a curriculum with materials, much less a set of lesson plans and specific teaching-learning practices. However, the standards do specify broadly what students should learn in the two target areas. The English language arts standards are reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language itself. They require attention to classic and contemporary literature and to challenging informational texts across the disciplines. In the foreground are such capabilities as drawing out key ideas, integrating ideas, recognizing structure and organizing communications, responding to and achieving expression, understanding and con- structing explanations and arguments, and conducting research. One can argue (and people are!) about many of the details, such as what’s appropri- ate at various levels, whether literature gets enough emphasis, and whether the exams reflecting the standards will really drive greater achievement. However, the English language arts standards seem to me to emphasize attitudes and capabilities plainly lifeworthy for the contemporary era. The standards are very much akin to aspects of the twenty-first-century skills frameworks discussed in the following chapter. 176 future wise The Mathematics standards have a rather different style, hugging somewhat closer to a typical curriculum. They feature a good set of general mathematical practices: making sense of problems, persevering, reasoning abstractly and quantitatively; understanding, constructing, and critiquing arguments; using mathematical models; and so on. They include statistics and probability prominently, lifeworthy areas as dis- cussed earlier. They invest in fewer topics more deeply. All this is good, but there are a few concerns as well. For the most part, the mathemati- cal content is the usual suspects. The secondary level emphasizes rather technical matters, and this push toward expertise instead of expert amateurism worries me (see chapter 2). Problem finding does not seem to be much of a presence. Finally, in contrast with the English language arts standards, the mathematics standards do not call for attention to mathematics across the disciplines, even though the opportunities seem plain in science, economics, and even history. While Common Core currently limits itself to the language arts and mathematics, treating the latter somewhat conservatively at that, some educators have ranged boldly across multiple disciplines with rec- ommendations for renewal. For example, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, in one of her article contributions to Curriculum 21, a book she also edited, suggests that social studies dump traditional divisions and address specific contemporary issues. One of her themes: “Is geography inevitably des- tiny in the political life of the Middle East?” History should give more emphasis to recent events and historical roots in relationship to current realities. Studies in science should coalesce around problems, leaving behind the traditional separation into biology, physics, and chemistry. In similar spirit, Grant Wiggins characterizes “a diploma worth having.” Education toward such a diploma might involve a version of civics with emphasis on civic action, how a bill becomes law, and lobby- ing. US and world history might get taught backward chronologically from currently pressing issues. Mathematics could focus principally on probability and statistics and mathematical modeling. Stepping away from any specific prescription, let’s develop a sense of contemporary opportunities to renew the disciplines. Consider again the teaching of history. One enticing transformation concerns the scale Buckets of Knowledge 177 of events. Characteristically the teaching of history focuses on the his- tory of nations and advances more or less decade by decade. However, recent years have brought greater emphasis on world history and atten- tion to events at a larger scale. Learners might engage not so much the story of this revolution or that revolution but waves of revolutions—for instance, several revolutions characteristic of the twentieth century (e.g. Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Mexican, Iranian) and their causes and their consequences, viewed comparatively as part of a complex world scene. An even larger perspective comes from big history, a stance pio- neered by David Christian and others that begins with the creation of the universe and traces events through the last 13.75 billion years, in broad strokes at first, then with a closer focus as we approach the emer- gence of Homo sapiens a couple of hundred thousand years ago, the development of complex civilizations beginning around twelve thou- sand years ago, the gradual rise of an interconnected world economy a few hundred years ago, and the transformative impact of science and technology in the past two hundred years. History and economics mix to probe the patterns of trade across nations. One perspective on the world economy notes how it has been dominated by highly industrialized nations that draw raw or par- tially processed materials from peripheral nations. The industrialized nations thrive in part by selling manufactured products back to the more peripheral nations. History of this sort often seems to offer con- siderably more insight into the human condition and the development of human society than the more particularistic history students usually encounter. In renewing the discipline, perhaps we should zoom back to the big picture somewhat more often and zoom into the detailed events somewhat less often, while of course keeping an eye on both. Try This Pick a discipline you know pretty well. Suppose you wanted to renew it. What’s a fresh perspective you might add? 178 future wise Besides renewed versions of the familiar disciplines, the contempo- rary era very much invites a freshened palette of disciplines. One area ripe for attention is psychology and social science. Typical precollege education today hardly gives these a nod. Maybe this made sense fifty years ago, but psychology and social science have become rich with fundamental insights and considerable practical guidance about living a life and participating in a community and a world. Wiggins recom- mends including psychology with a special emphasis on mental health, child development, and family relations. For some other possibilities, understandings of in-group and out-group behavior illuminate the character of conflict on scales from urban gangs to international wars. Neuroscience reveals core mechanisms of depression in the interac- tion between negative ways in which some people describe their lives and their world for themselves and induced responses in the limbic and autonomic nervous system. Among the upstart hybrid disciplines of recent years is behavioral economics, a marriage of psychology and economics. It’s point of depar- ture is how human conduct diverges from rational choice as framed by classic economics. People often do not embrace what mathematically are the best payoffs or shun the worst ones. In certain areas, people persistently make serious mistakes in their judgments. Policymakers can fashion social policies in areas such as health care to work around such systematic mistakes. In some other areas of judgment, people arguably are smarter than the numbers, responding adaptively to complex situations not well captured by a simple economic analysis. Either way behavioral economics offers big insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Turning to another more venerable prospect, philosophy arguably deserves more presence precollege. For a number of years, champions of the art of philosophical thinking have found opportunities to bring it to schoolchildren of almost any age, and it is striking how readily rel- atively young children can engage the issues thoughtfully. To be sure, philosophy has its esoteric side—for instance, many issues of ontology and metaphysics. However, strands in philosophy embrace some issues universal to the lives learners are likely to live. For example, how do Buckets of Knowledge 179 we know what we know, and how confident can we be about it? This speaks to the better handling of the endless puzzles of truth that arise daily in political statements, economic projections, public policies, and personal choices. Appropriate slices of philosophy offer understanding and counsel across multiple dimensions of the human condition: eth- ics, emotions and their nature, the good life and what it might mean to live one, or how science works. “That doesn’t sound very much like the philosophy course I had,” you might say. Quite possibly not. The same revisionary stance men- tioned earlier for the study of algebra or history applies here as well. A standard packaging of Western philosophy—start with Plato and Socrates and work your way forward—may not deliver big understand- ings and questions nearly as well as a new construction of timely themes. Many curricula today already include attention to information technologies in one or another guise, a wise choice considering the ubiquitous uses and abuses of information technologies. With science already a top dog in the typical curriculum, technology and its relations to science deserve attention as well. The same might be said for engi- neering and, more broadly, patterns of design thinking. Engineering, after all, is a far older human endeavor than science. The principles and patterns of thought behind anything from an hourglass to a jet plane are a central part of the human story and a central conceptual resource for people today. By this point, some readers are probably thinking, “Too many choices! How can we ever navigate all these new seas?” We can’t. There’s a challenge of choice. But there was already a problem of choice in picking over the many big understandings and questions bundled inside any traditional discipline. The many ways of renewing the disciplines just add another layer to the problem of choice, inviting the same solution we used before: smart sampling. Choices have to be made. The point is to make those choices intelligently, with full attention to lifeworthy learning. Furthermore, an earlier theme offers a partial simplification. Chapter 2 examined skeptically the reach for expertise built into the later years of many curricula: the campaign to move students, especially 180 future wise good students, rapidly along toward the more advanced topics in a discipline. Not the best investment! I argued that for basic education, expert amateurism is more important than expertise. Educational resources should go toward building a robust flexible understanding of fundamentals, which demonstrably even good students generally don’t attain, more than advancing students rapidly toward sophisticated aspects of a discipline that rarely come up in the lives learners are likely to live. In summary, the traditional disciplines offer a great deal, but it makes little sense to take them as they stand. For lifeworthy learning, the disciplines need renewing to take advantage of fresh developments in the traditional disciplines and of new and hybrid disciplines that especially speak to our times and build expert amateurism. Reframing the Disciplines What’s a better bucket system? A bucket system reflecting the disci- plines renewed would include many familiar and comforting titles: science, history, literature, mathematics. In contrast, some educators have offered bucket systems still grounded in the familiar disciplines but relabeling and regrouping them for a new and more visionary look. Chapter 4 mentioned the Essential Schools movement conceived by educational visionary and reformer Theodore Sizer. Its notion of essen- tial questions has been picked up by various innovators. Here is a nice example of large categories of essential questions to pursue through learning, from the Technology for Learning Consortium: Identity and history: Who am I? Who is my family? Other people and groups: Who are the other people around me and in other parts of the world? How are they similar to and different from me? My place in the world: Where do I live? How did I get here? The psychological world: What is in my mind? Where do my emotions come from? Buckets of Knowledge 181 The biological world: Do animals think? What does it mean to be alive? The physical world: What is the world made out of? Why do things move? Forms, patterns, sizes: What regularities are there in the world? How do they come about? Another example in similar spirit reflects the Harvard College pro- gram in General Education, a fairly recent innovation at Harvard that also could apply preuniversity. Here are its principal themes: ● Aesthetic and interpretive understanding ● Culture and belief ● Empirical and mathematical reasoning ● Ethical reasoning ● Science of living systems ● Science of the physical universe ● Societies of the world ● United States in the world Notice how these bucket systems largely build on the familiar dis- ciplines. For instance, the physical world from Essential Schools and science of the physical universe from the General Education program plainly look to the physical sciences. Identity and history and my place in the world from Essential Schools and culture and belief and societies of the world from General Education concern history and sociology. In The Disciplined Mind, Howard Gardner proposed an especially broad tripartite perspective on disciplinary learning. He suggested organ- izing education around three grand themes: the true, the good, and the beautiful. The true points to what we know about the world and how we know it, from disciplines such as science, mathematics, and history. The good points to the role of ethics and values in human society. Themes of good and evil arise in social studies, literature, ethical questions around the sciences, and many other areas. The beautiful points to the central place of aesthetic engagement and creativity in human life and learning, including in literature, the visual arts, dance, the appreciation 182 future wise of nature, and more. These three pillars, Gardner urged, merit deep and persistent attention in education. In recommending a focus on such fundamental and enduring themes, Gardner’s proposal encountered critiques from postmodern perspectives. For example, whose truth? Postmodernists urge that we can hardly view the quest for truth as a purist enterprise. Matters of truth are intrinsically entangled in patterns of power in any society. Certain figures—the professors, the religious leaders, the experts in pro- fessional areas such as medicine—establish categories and declare for one truth rather than another, sometimes in ways that rather straight- forwardly reflect maintaining fiefdoms. Similar questions can be raised about whose good and whose beautiful. A decade later, in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed, Gardner responded to such critiques, also providing a perspective on our ever more digital world. On the matter of truth, for example, he argues that, if anything, contemporary society with its ready flow of information puts us all in a better position than ever before to sort out questions of truth, despite the linkages to themes of power. In general, Gardner’s proposal continues to be a provocative and enticing bucket system with especially big buckets. Crosstopics What’s a better bucket system? The disciplines anchor education. However, anchor has an unsettling double sense, stabilizing, yes, but also holding back. One remedy calls for renewing and reframing the disciplines. Another calls for structures that cut across the disciplines. These days, educators commonly supplement the disciplines with other content structures: interdisciplinary units, episodes of participa- tion in the surrounding community, individual or group inquiry proj- ects, and the like. The grand narratives from Neil Postman mentioned earlier, “Spaceship Earth” and “The Fallen Angel,” do just that. It’s useful to have a name for such structures. They aren’t academic disciplines and they generally cut across the familiar disciplines, so let’s Buckets of Knowledge 183 call them crosstopics. What crosstopics offer to lifeworthy learning calls for a careful look. Let’s consider some other examples. Facing History and Ourselves is a collection of interdisciplinary resources crafted to awaken learners to the profound problems of violence in society. As originally designed, the program aims to bring learners face-to-face with the Holocaust and the political, sociological, and psychological forces behind it. The “facing ourselves” side of the story asks students to recognize what numerous investigations have shown: although we may think that it’s only those other people in that other place and culture that slide into genocidal violence, in fact almost anyone under the right conditions can succumb. Since its first years, Facing History has diversified to provide pro- grams that address several other sad facets of our society, including, for instance, the eugenics movement with its racist presumptions, hate crimes, the problematic reception of immigrants, and bullying and ostracism. Loosely speaking, Facing History belongs to the discipline of history, but in fact it reaches out to findings from experimental psychology, sociology, and philosophical perspectives, among other sources. More generally, recent years have seen a fascinating range of find- ings and perspectives on peace and war. We could mine these for interdisciplinary crosstopics reflecting history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and geography. Gavriel Salomon and Edward Cairns edited the technical resource Handbook on Peace Education. Salomon has assembled evidence of short- to medium-term effects of peace education with diminishing longer-term effects in contexts of intractable conflict such as Israel and Palestine. Steven Pinker, in The Better Angels of Our Nature, offers the hope of a gradually improving balance between peace and war across history. Given the looming place wars occupy in human affairs, such ideas are worth understanding, at least as worth understanding as the details of particular conflicts that fill conven- tional history textbooks. For a more serene but related area, our ever more interdependent world has provoked the emergence of what are generally called global studies. Jacobs, mentioned earlier for her Curriculum 21, recommends 184 future wise framing this as studies focusing on the new world era, comparing and contrasting with the parameters of the past. Veronica Boix Mansilla and Anthony Jackson have developed the idea of global competence and explored how to cultivate knowledge and habits of mind important to it. In Educating for Global Competence, they foreground interdisciplinary understandings that foster engagement with our complex world, advocating four broad competences: 1. Investigate the world beyond our immediate environment, framing significant problems and conducting well-crafted and age- appropriate research 2. Recognize perspectives, others’ and our own, articulating and explaining such perspectives thoughtfully and respectfully 3. Communicate ideas effectively with diverse audiences, bridging geo- graphic, linguistic, ideological, and cultural barriers 4. Take action to improve conditions, viewing ourselves as players in the world and participating reflectively Here’s one exercise teachers have explored. Pick up almost anything around you: a pencil, an electronic gadget, an orange. What understand- ing do you have of where it came from? If you take the time to investigate, you are quite likely to discover a complex narrative involving a number of different nations and regions contributing raw materials, refined materials, manufacturing processes, and means of transportation. At the level of ordinary objects, today’s world reflects much more of a net- work of interdependencies than most of us recognize, one among many points to appreciate through the development of global competence. Crosstopics in the form of learning expeditions are the central feature of the Expeditionary Learning school model. The document Expeditionary Learning Core Practices, available for downloading on the program’s rich website, explains how it all works. A thoughtful book-length examination of learning in this style can be found in An Ethic of Excellence by Ron Berger. A learning expedition is a six- to twelve-week undertaking involv- ing learning targets, a kickoff experience, case-focused investigations Buckets of Knowledge 185 that often relate to the local community, culminating products, reflec- tions, and a celebration of the learning. It’s constructed with a num- ber of criteria in mind, including attention to content and standards. A learning expedition gives focus to content by connecting to relevant and provocative cases. For instance, an expedition reflecting the US Revolutionary War might probe the role of the local city or town. An expedition reflecting Newtonian physics might investigate the physics of car accidents. Students spend a substantial portion of their learning time engaged in such expeditions. Do learning expeditions foreground big understandings and big questions? It’s certainly possible for an expedition to dive into a niche understanding, but not so typical. By design, expeditions include atten- tion to twenty-first-century skills and related themes. They always are somewhat interdisciplinary, although perhaps centered on a particu- lar discipline. They often emphasize perspective taking, environmental stewardship, cultural diversity, equity, and social justice. The program website includes a variety of impressive student work, so by all means, look for yourself. In general, it’s not difficult to search out other ideas for crosstop- ics or make them up. The world in its current complexity and diverse history offers many opportunities like these—for instance, compara- tive concepts of social justice: the Napoleonic code, sharia justice, the constitutionally based system of the United States. How is justice seen in a few key nations and cultures today, how do those visions align or diverge, and historically where did they come from? Another is: What is the social impact of digital communications technologies, which often are said to be changing the very way people think and learn, as well as changing the ground rules for how governments democratic and auto- cratic can function? Another way of constructing these complements to discipline- centered instruction reaches for local opportunities, giving students a chance to know better their own environment at the level of community or state. Expeditionary Learning offers many examples. Inquiry projects in biology may focus on a stream or river in the neighborhood, cata- loging its life forms, charting their interdependencies, and taking note 186 future wise of the influence of pollution. Inquiry projects in physics might examine patterns of regional energy supply, not only considering the existing situation but also looking ahead decades to forecast possible needs and problems. Either of these themes and many others like them not only connect with their home disciplines—here, biology and physics—but offer ample opportunities for mathematics to describe situations and project trends, for local history to illuminate circumstances, and for psychological, sociological, economic, and political factors to explain what’s happened so far and where it might go. The relationship between crosstopics and the idea of interdisci- plinary learning calls for a careful look. Sometimes, as with Spaceship Earth, crosstopics are blatantly interdisciplinary. Sometimes, as with Facing History, they have a clear center in a particular discipline but reach well beyond it. Either way, crosstopics involve more than explora- tions of the relationships between disciplines. They are areas of content in themselves. For instance, it’s one thing to explore the general relationships between physics and biology. It’s another to zoom in on the problems of Spaceship Earth, with constraints from physics, biology, and other dis- ciplines defining the fundamental dilemmas. It’s one thing to explore the general relationships between history and psychology. It’s another to zoom in on the problem of genocide as Facing History does, informed by history, psychology, and other disciplines. Interdisciplinary learning in general seems like a good idea, but crosstopics are much more tar- geted than general interdisciplinary learning. I hope it’s clear from these examples that crosstopics are nice; they often have an intriguing and substantive character. But what’s the downside? One downside is that crosstopics easily can prove lightweight. By shadowing the manager of a local store, students are supposed to be learning something about economics, but how much of that actually happens? By investigating a recent important Supreme Court case, stu- dents are supposed to be learning something about the legal system, but how much of their report is copy-and-paste from newspaper arti- cles and Wikipedia? This reservation is important, but it’s somewhat misplaced. Comp- laints about badly designed crosstopics aren’t grounds for concluding Buckets of Knowledge 187 that crosstopics are a bad idea. Indeed, typical instruction in the famil- iar disciplines all too often is just as lightweight. Good learning from disciplines or crosstopics has to be carefully conceived, constructed, and monitored. Even so, are crosstopics necessary? Do we really need them in edu- cation? Arguably we do. Life does not come organized like the disci- plines. A person navigating through a day or year encounters a range of social situations, ethical problems, purchase decisions, job responsi- bilities, political roles, and so on. Rarely does any of this involve a pure encounter with physics, biology, or history. If we want education to inform and energize the lives learners are likely to live, bridges need to be built between the disciplines and how people encounter the world. Crosstopics designedly do this. Recall the idea of lifeready learning from chapter 5 and the critical shift from topic to tool. It wasn’t enough to learn ideas from the disci- plines for academic understanding. They needed to become ready tools for looking at other things. Crosstopics intrinsically require a shift from topic to tool. In summary, education in our era without any presence of crosstop- ics looks to be a mistake. Sometimes those crosstopics take the form of separate strands apart from the familiar disciplines. A school might sustain several such strands. Sometimes they take the form of strategic collaborations between two or three lines of disciplinary instruction. Sometimes they live inside a traditional discipline, even though they reach beyond it, as Facing History commonly finds its home in social studies, for example. Rather than multiple crosstopics, a school might choose one or two with great breadth and depth, say, global studies and the role of the arts in civilization, and make those pervasive cross-disciplinary commitments, core to the character of the institution and shaping influences on the teaching of all the disciplines. Whatever the strategy, some presence of crosstopics seems crucial to lifeworthy and lifeready learning in our era. With crosstopics essential, one further question remains: How might they relate structurally to learning in the disciplines? The range of answers to this question is striking as we look from vision to vision and setting to setting. 188 future wise Crosstopics as Bucket Systems What’s a better bucket system? So far, crosstopics have appeared mostly as support characters in the drama of education, with the principal characters remaining the familiar disciplines renewed and reframed. What if it worked differently? What if crosstopics provided a comple- mentary cast of characters side-by-side with the familiar disciplines? Expeditionary Learning might be an example. Or what if some bucket system of crosstopics became the principal organizer, with targeted dis- ciplinary learning threaded in? What would that look like? Something like that certainly could be constructed out of Postman’s notion of grand narratives. This chapter opened with two of the grand narratives he proposed. In The End of Education, Postman profiles five: Spaceship Earth—the collective dilemmas of occupying a small planet The Fallen Angel—human failings and weaknesses juxtaposed with strengths The American Experiment—the history, achievements, and limits of the United States as a culture allowing great freedom of religious and political thought and expression The Law of Diversity—exploring how language, religion, custom, and art and artifacts in their diversity contribute richly to the human condition The Word Weavers/the World Makers—the role of language and linguis- tic expression Try This Postman did not offer his five as a comprehensive system. They were simply promising individual buckets. What’s a grand narrative or two you might add to bring the list closer to a good bucket system? Buckets of Knowledge 189 For a more systematic offer, the Common Ground Collaborative, developed at the International School of Brussels, suggests these eight Human Commonalities, broad themes for organizing learning and inquiry that encompass much of contemporary importance: ● Personal meaning ● Creative expression ● Physical well-being ● Communication systems ● Sustainable production ● Systems for problem solving and and consumption predicting ● Group membership ● Connection to our environments Here’s another example in this spirit: the state of Victoria, Australia, offers the thoughtfully worked out Victorian Essential Learning Standards, including three major super-buckets: Physical, personal, and social learning— health and physical education, interpersonal development, personal learning (learning to learn), civics and citizenship Discipline-based learning— the arts, English, the humanities (economics, geography, history), languages other than English, mathematics (number, space, measurement, chance and data, structure, work- ing mathematically), science Interdisciplinary learning—communication; design, creativity, and technology; information and communications technology; thinking processes (reasoning, processing and inquiry, creativity, reflec- tion, evaluation and metacognition) The familiar disciplines appear in the middle, complemented by the first and the last bundles of crosstopics. Sometimes individual schools have provocative crosstopic bucket systems. The Quest to Learn School, an innovative public school in New York City founded in 2009, was inspired by young people’s fas- cination with video gaming and by the ways good video games moti- vate sustained engagement and learning. Quest to Learn does not 190 future wise leave discipline-based learning behind, but bundles the disciplines into broad themes: The Way Things Work (integrated math/science)—understanding differ- ent kinds of systems and modifying, remixing, and inventing systems of their own Being, Space and Place (integrated English language arts/social studies)— understanding time, space, and human geographies as forces shaping the development of ideas, expression, and values Codeworlds (integrated math/English language arts/computer programming)— practice in decoding, authoring, manipulating, and unlocking meaning in coded worlds and understanding how meaning is produced through the interpretation of symbolic codes ordering our world Wellness (integrated socioemotional learning, physical education, nutrition, health)—understanding what it means to be healthy, and cultivating ownership of wellness practices Sports for the Mind (integrated game design and media arts)—learning new media literacies, which are multimodal and multicultural, and how they operate within specific contexts for specific purposes Plausible cross-disciplinary bucket systems are not so hard to construct. Recognizing the global character of our lives today, one promising approach might feature attention to world-class problems including these: ● Energy ● Ecology ● Conflict ● Poverty ● Justice and human rights ● Governance local, regional, and global ● Cultural continuity and contrast ● Identity and meaning Buckets of Knowledge 191 As learners address the energy bucket, they would find themselves exploring the nature of energy, its forms and transformations and measurement (drawing on physics, mathematics, and engineering); the sources in our natural environment and their limitations (oil, wind, solar power); the politics and economics of energy production and consumption (oil-rich nations, international markets, historical shifts in energy sources); and related themes. As learners address the governance crosstopic, they would consider different systems of governance (democracy, communism, oligarchies); their historical origins (Greek democracy, Marx); their trade-offs and complexities in the contemporary world and history (e.g., the strengths but also the challenges of democracy, as in highly factionalized nations today, or how the Roman Republic slipped into a dictatorship and how the same can happen, and has happened, in some settings in recent his- tory); and the current forms and future prospects of transnational gov- ernance systems, such as the European Union or the United Nations. For a very different kind of organization, instead of world-class problems, let’s look to the ways individuals and groups engage differ- ent worlds of experience: the world of work, the world of civic partici- pation, the world of the arts, and so on. Here is a possible framework in that spirit: ● Professional engagement ● Engagement in the arts ● Civic engagement ● Family and social engagement ● Engagement with the physical world ● Engagement with the biological world ● Engagement with the world of the mind (learning to learn, think- ing, emotions) ● Engagement with fundamental puzzles of the human condition For instance, learners addressing professional engagement would examine what professional roles of various sorts are like and what it 192 future wise means to function in those roles. Learners addressing engagement in the arts would experience and reflect on what various forms of art offer to living a life and what creativity in those forms might look like. Learners addressing fundamental puzzles of the human condition would confront perennial problems of the nature of truth, justice, and meaning as they arise not just in philosophical tracts but in individual lives and across different cultures. The general spirit of any of these diverse cross-disciplinary bucket systems should be plain. They all aim to energize school learning with a lifeworthiness and lifereadiness that does not flow easily from the tradi- tional disciplines, especially as traditionally taught. However, the choice of an organizing system presents truly daunting challenges. Let’s turn to that and see what we can make of the dilemma. Better Bucket Systems What’s a better bucket system? It’s an important problem, because bucket systems provide large-scale organization for education. The contemporary conversation about how to organize curriculum teems with alternatives. We don’t really expect to identify a best bucket sys- tem, but what sorts of bucket systems look more promising? The story so far suggests some principles to live by: ● The familiar disciplines are important presences in one form or another. Treasuries of big understandings and big questions, they can’t be left behind in any misplaced gesture of modernity. ● However, the familiar disciplines need renewing with current ideas, hybrid disciplines, and emerging disciplines to make the most of the disciplinary side of the story. ● Reframing some of the familiar disciplines can add perspective and energy, making clearer how they speak to the lives today’s learners are likely to live. ● The disciplines alone, even renewed and reframed, aren’t enough. Crosstopics need to appear one way or another, because they Buckets of Knowledge 193 align with the ways problems and opportunities come up as peo- ple live their lives and because they push for the shift from topic to tool so important for lifeready learning. All this leaves ample room for a range of designs—and leaves hanging a fundamental architectural choice. Should a better bucket system for today’s learning put the disciplines on top, with crosstop- ics woven in, or crosstopics on top, with the disciplines woven in? There is a hybrid possibility too: a parallel structure of disciplines and crosstopics. In other words, what’s the better top-level organizing principle? Among these options, I suggest that there’s no clear universal choice. Instead, it seems important to recognize some intrinsic trade- offs. Crosstopics on top have the advantage of standing strong against the typical traps of pure disciplinary instruction. Persistent multiyear crosstopics have such a clear presence that they are not likely to get lost. On the cautionary side, deeper disciplinary learning might suffer some. Also, crosstopics, because of their unfamiliarity, present unset- tling organizational challenges and, in many settings, uncomfortable political challenges. Disciplines on top have an opposite profile of pros and cons. They are easier to design and manage, more familiar, and politically less touchy. However, they may teeter on the brink of relapsing into tradi- tion without substantive renewal and with only brief and occasional crosstopics that don’t really do the job. In general, many different designs can work pretty well—if they are made to work. Certainly there are some grossly incomplete and ill- conceived schemes. But scanning across the possibilities that have won some attention, I see little sense in declaring that the disciplines or the crosstopics should always be the primary organizer. In one or another setting, ingenious and committed educators have pursued distinctive approaches. They have labored hard, taking their systems on shake- down cruises, finding the problems, making repairs and improvements. The result has been education more likely to matter, more likely to take hold and inform the lives learners are likely to live. 194 future wise reimagining educaTion The conversation to have: Organizing content across the years of education for the learners and context. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning At its broadest level, identifying lifeworthy learning is a matter of defining the big buckets that contain lifeworthy learning. Multiyear curricula always depend on one or another bucket sys- tem that maps the territory deemed worth learning. So here’s the conversation: What buckets should we use? The familiar disciplines are tremendously important buckets, but they serve contemporary needs only if they are renewed with recent advances, hybrid disciplines, and newly emerging disci- plines. Moreover, it often seems advantageous to reframe the familiar disciplines with more visionary labels and fresh ways of bundling them together. Crosstopics give us another important kind of bucket: they address themes and issues that span multiple disciplines and cut close to the lives learners are likely to live, for instance, themes such as personal and public health, or issues such as the per- sistence of poverty. Lifeworthy learning today demands attention to both disciplines and crosstopics. Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning Choosing a good bucket system is important, but we also should remember what that choice does not accomplish: good buck- ets still need filling with lifeworthy big understandings and questions rather than just facts, routines, and niche learning. Sometimes curriculum designers seem to feel that specifying a rich top-level structure finishes the work. In fact, it only begins the conversation. Buckets of Knowledge 195 Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning A good bucket system does not guarantee a good teaching-learn- ing process. One can have the best framework in the world, only to discover that what happens on the ground day by day does not translate the framework into lifeready learning. However, the style of a bucket system certainly can encourage and inspire life- ready learning. Contemporary themes, connections to personal and community concerns, and big questions in the foreground can help to stimulate thoughtful and engaged patterns of teach- ing and learning. Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum Establishing a bucket system for education over multiple years calls for conversation balancing fundamental structural trade- offs. The top-level bucket system might involve a selection of dis- ciplines with crosstopics woven in at a lower level; or a bundle of crosstopics with disciplinary learning woven in; or a parallel system where courses or units based on disciplines and on cross- topics live side-by-side; or other configurations. There are bad bucket systems and good bucket systems but no perfect bucket system. Our structural choices come with trade- offs reflecting local circumstances both social and political. For instance, a bucket system centered on the disciplines will prove easier to organize and defend because it is more familiar, but the risk is that crosstopics will fall into the cracks of token attention. 9 Big Know-How Twenty-First-Century Skills and Beyond A movAble feAst, the InternAtIonAl ConferenCe on thInkIng hAs trAveled around the world for three decades, touching down every couple of years The thirteenth conference was held in Norrköping, Sweden, in June 2007. At one point during the conference, I had the opportunity to ask the entire audience this question: What do you believe are some of the most important knowledge and skills for students to learn toward our complex future? Audience members wrote their responses on sticky notes and posted them on a wall outside the auditorium so that everyone could look for patterns. After the conference, I collected the sticky notes and analyzed them for recurrent themes. Here are the themes that bubbled up: Empathy Technology Health Communication Environment Ethics Science Global perspectives Society and how it Learning to learn The arts works Mathematics Collaboration Dealing with conflict Spirituality Thinking Self-understanding 197 198 future wise This list is in random order, not in the order of frequency of the actual responses. For instance, empathy was not necessarily the most often mentioned category or self-understanding the least. Try This Look over the list of themes and identify three or four that you think might have been mentioned most often. I’ve shown this list to several audiences and asked them to guess the top themes. Of course, there are differences, but many people nom- inate such themes as communication, empathy, environment, ethics, and self-understanding as high scorers. That’s what the original group thought. Here is the list in actual rank order of frequency from most frequent to least (read down, then across): Thinking Environment Dealing with conflict Self-understanding Global perspectives Spirituality Empathy The arts Science Ethics Collaboration Mathematics Communication Health Technology Learning to learn Society and how it works If you take a close look at this list in priority order, one big question stands out: What happened to the disciplines? Oh, there they are, way at the end: science, mathematics, and technology, if you want to call technology a discipline. The exception is the arts, which appear in the middle. What are we to make of all that? One thing not to make of it is that the disciplines lack importance. The last several chapters emphasized how much the disciplines have to offer to the lives learners are likely to live. Plausibly, the thin showing of the disciplines on the list has much to do with the phrasing of the question and the spirit of the occasion. Big Know-How 199 However, one thing to make of it is this: the disciplines are not the only game in town. In fact, the themes mentioned by the audience resemble an educational agenda that has earned considerable visibility over the past decade. One name for it is twenty-first-century skills, another is key competencies, and there are others. The general notion is that in our complicated world, for the kinds of lives today’s learners are likely to live, it’s important to develop skills and attitudes that address some very broad challenges, like self-understanding, empathy, ethics, and col- laboration—and, of course, good thinking. Notice that thinking won the top place on the list. This pleases me personally, because much of my professional work over several decades has concerned the teaching of thinking. I have to say, though, that the top place may be a bit of a cheat. Recall that thinking was the topic of the conference, so of course the attendees would favor it. Surely thinking should be well up there, but I’m not sure it should be at the very top. What most of the list deals with comes down to this: personal and interpersonal know-how of general importance to many aspects of life. That is, the themes look to how people might better manage their per- sonal lives (e.g., self-understanding, learning to learn, health) and their interpersonal lives, including family, civic, and workplace roles (e.g., empathy, ethics, communication, collaboration). On workplace roles, recall from chapter 1 that jobs today are demanding more and more in the way of higher-order skills. Just showing up and following a rou- tine reliably no longer suffices to hold a good position. Plainly, the con- ference participants were worried about whether schools were doing enough to build up personal and interpersonal know-how of broad importance toward the lives today’s learners are likely to live. Of course, know-how comes in many sizes, including much smaller sizes than learning to learn or society and how it works. Getting along in today’s world benefits from knowing how to use a credit card, shop for a house or apartment, or back up your computer. The list of little chunks of convenient know-how is endless. In contrast, the items on the list are striking for their scope and significance. Remember the importance of big understandings and big questions? Well, what we have here is big know-how. Recalling the 200 future wise criteria for big understandings and questions—big in insight, action, ethics, opportunity—what we have here fits the same profile. Big per- sonal and interpersonal know-how affords insight into oneself and the world, guides practical action, and nurtures ethical attitudes and behavior, with plenty of opportunity for application. Big know-how— twenty-first-century skills, key competences, whatever you want to call it—becomes another piece of the answer to what’s worth learning. Despite the similar profile on insight-action-ethics-opportunity, big know-how contrasts considerably with big understandings as we’ve used the idea earlier. Big understandings for the most part are content oriented in a broad sense. They concern understanding our world and our lives with what science, history, medicine, literature, ecology, and other areas of knowledge tell us. In contrast, big know- how concerns understanding how to do something in one’s life that needs doing. Admittedly, this contrast is hardly categorical. Big understandings require know-how to apply them, and big know-how benefits from understanding in various disciplines. Really, there’s a continuum and an intersection. Nonetheless, it’s useful to recognize a rough contrast between big understandings (and questions) and big know-how. Just look back at that list. Look again at how the themes do not seem very much like instruction centered on the disciplines. So here’s the problem: What to do with big know-how? The previ- ous chapter worked through how broad categories of content might organize education over a number of years. Now we need to pay atten- tion to big know-how as well. So what to do with big know-how? How do we teach it? How does it relate to content teaching and learning? How do we find room for it? How do we strike a balance between big know-how and big understand- ings or find a synergy between them? What big know-how deserves attention in schools versus big know-how better learned elsewhere? To address these puzzles, I’ll begin by looking at a couple of the frameworks for big know-how that have been proposed, consider how to teach big know-how, and then turn to the challenge of fitting it into schooling. Big Know-How 201 Listing Big Know-How The participants in the Thirteenth International Conference on Thinking hardly have a lock on ideas about big know-how. Over the past decades, a number of lists have appeared around the world with very much the same flavor. These lists bear such names as twenty-first-century skills or twenty-first-century competences. They include various personal capabilities and dispositions, for instance, around thinking or health or learning to learn; and various interpersonal social, civic, and workplace priorities, such as good communication, ethical behavior, and entrepre- neurship. Curriculum guidelines for states and nations and coalitions of nations now often include such frameworks. The US Twenty-First-Century Skills Framework For our purposes, it makes more sense to glance at a few of these lists than to attempt an exhaustive review. A natural starting place is one developed over the past several years in the United States by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Although not an official federal government framework, it has attracted considerable attention. The top level emphasizes the desired results: student outcomes, with four big categories: 1. Core subjects and twenty-first-century themes 2. Learning and innovation skills, including creativity and innova- tion, critical thinking and problem solving, and communication and collaboration 3. Information, media, and technology skills—information literacy, media literacy, and information and communications literacy 4. Life and career skills—for instance, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, leadership and responsibility Some people get irritated by the term twenty-first-century skills used in this framework and others. They point out that most of these skills have been important for a long time. In response, champions of the 202 future wise label would say that these skills have special importance for a much higher percentage of the population in today’s world. In any case, let’s not get distracted by debates about vocabulary. Let’s drill down into a couple of these categories to explore what they mean. Under number 1, the core subjects are the ones we would all rec- ognize. The twenty-first-century themes are versions of what I call crosstopics: global awareness; financial, economic, business, and entre- preneurial literacy; civic literacy; health literacy; and environmental literacy. Categories 2, 3, and 4 all have a very different character: they identify areas of skill rather than areas of content. Dorothy, we are definitely no longer in the Kansas of typical cur- riculum. For instance, under “initiative and self-direction,” the aim is to help students learn to manage goals and time, including balancing short-term tactical goals and longer-term strategic goals; to work inde- pendently, monitoring, defining, and prioritizing without direct over- sight; and to be self-directed learners, with initiative, commitment, and critical reflection. Notice how the term skills is not completely appropriate. To be sure, goal and time management or independent work involve skills, but they also involve feelings and motives. They are as much matters of what people commit themselves to as of what people know how to do. They are, we could say, matters of disposition or attitude or mind-set as well as skill. This is typical of such frameworks. The Four Cs The twenty-first-century skills framework includes an impressive range of capabilities. Indeed, it’s easy for educators to find the framework daunting. Accordingly, some have focused on a subset of the frame- work, the Four Cs. The Four Cs come from section 2 of the framework, learning and innovation skills, and refer to communication, collabora- tion, critical thinking, and creativity. If one needs to zoom in on something, certainly these four make an attractive quartet. They have a transparent lifeworthiness. In both civic and workplace roles, everyone will gain from more fluent and Big Know-How 203 meaningful communication and collaboration, and anyone might con- tribute better through critical thinking and creativity. The Four Cs also have a transparent relevance to deep learning. Learners are in a better position to learn through others as well as through traditional and con- temporary information sources if they have more nimble skills of com- munication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The European Reference Framework Another prominent list offers an interesting comparison: the European Reference Framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. This collaborative construction currently helps to guide educational pat- terns across the European Union (EU). The top level features four major goals: personal fulfillment, active citizenship, social cohesion, and employability in a knowledge society. Serving these goals are the key competences themselves: 1. Communication in the mother tongue 2. Communication in foreign languages 3. Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology 4. Digital competence 5. Learning to learn 6. Social and civic competences 7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship 8. Cultural awareness and expression There’s an obvious overlap with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The two, although at different levels, find common cause in areas such as digital competence, learning to learn, and sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. A careful look suggests that quite likely neither framework would categorically exclude anything in the other. There is nevertheless a difference in style. The organization of the EU framework gives special emphasis to the social and political 204 future wise challenges of diverse nations with distinctive cultures and histories functioning together. Notice how communication in foreign languages is a top-level category, and how the list concludes with cultural aware- ness and expression, which certainly encompasses not just the arts but also culture and cultures writ large. Notice how active citizenship and social cohesion are two of the four top-level goals. Dipping one level down in the EU framework reveals an orienting three-way profile for each of the eight: knowledge, skills, and attitude. For instance, under “sense of initiative and entrepreneurship,” relevant knowledge includes how to identify opportunities for personal, pro- fessional, or business activities, along with bigger-picture issues that might provide context. Skills include project management and effective representation and negotiation. An entrepreneurial attitude features initiative, proactivity, independence, and innovation across various fronts of life. The framework offers a similar three-way profile for all of the key competences. Recalling how in the US framework the term skills seems too nar- row for what’s meant, the same point applies here about these “com- petences,” which very much aim not just at technical capabilities but at the whole person, including passions, values, and commitments suited to a complex personal, professional, and civic world. Seven Survival Skills Awareness of trends around the world to make education more rele- vant informed Tony Wagner’s well-known The Global Achievement Gap. Wagner profiled fostering a core set of “survival skills” for modern workers, as well as lifelong learning and active citizenship. Even the best conventional school systems tend neither to teach nor test these skills. Here are the seven survival skills from Wagner: 1. Critical thinking and problem solving 2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence 3. Agility and adaptability Big Know-How 205 4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism (being an entrepreneur in style) 5. Effective oral and written communication 6. Accessing and analyzing information 7. Curiosity and imagination Again as earlier, the term skills does not entirely express the emotional and dispositional character of the list. Fostering such survival skills as agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurialism, or curiosity and imagination plainly has as much to do with building character as it does with cultivating capability. Habits of Mind Art Costa and Bena Kallick are well known for advocating school cul- tures that reflect sixteen habits of mind. Their habits of mind speak not only to good thinking and learning but also respect, empathy, and general self-management. I won’t list all sixteen, but here is a sample illustrating habits less obviously concerned with academics. ● Managing impulsivity ● Listening to others with understanding and empathy ● Questioning and posing problems ● Getting data through all the senses ● Responding with wonderment and awe ● Taking responsible risks ● Finding humor The conspicuous role of emotions and dispositions continues here as in previous lists. Studio Habits of Mind For an example from a disciplinary context, Lois Hetland, Ellen Winner, Shirley Veenema, and Kimberly Sheridan report a study of the mind-sets 206 future wise that skilled studio arts teachers cultivate in their Studio Thinking. Here is their list of studio habits of mind: ● Learning to Develop Craft: Using art tools, materials, concepts ● Learning to Engage and Persist: Committing and following- through ● Learning to Envision: Planning beyond seeing ● Learning to Express: Finding personal visions ● Learning to Observe: Seeing beyond the ordinary ● Learning to Reflect: Thinking metacognitively ● Learning to Stretch and Explore: Risking error ● Learning to Understand the Artist’s Worlds: Navigating domain and field Clearly these habits of mind speak to more than the studio arts. Craft, persistence, envisioning, expression, and so on contribute impor- tantly to any field. Moreover, it’s not hard to think of ways to generalize studio-style teaching to address fields outside the arts. Gardner’s Five Minds An especially broad view of big know-how comes from Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future. Perhaps best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner emphasizes that the five “minds” explored in the book are not at all the same as the several kinds of intel- ligence he formulated earlier. Rooted not so much in cognitive and brain structure as in broad modes of thought needed to face our com- plex world, the five minds are: 1. The disciplined mind 2. The synthesizing mind 3. The creative mind 4. The respectful mind 5. The ethical mind Big Know-How 207 Just from the labels, it’s apparent that artful and committed atten- tion to these modes would offer people much toward thriving person- ally and contributing socially. Some important nuances appear as one looks at the minds with more care. The disciplined mind, for instance, includes knowledge and understanding from the disciplines, a persistent theme in Gardner’s work as well as in this book. But it also includes disciplined mental conduct: attentive, systematic, careful about errors, and so on. The contrast between the synthesizing and creative minds offers another key point. The work of the synthesizing mind weaves together the sprawl of today’s knowledge within and across fields, certainly crea- tivity of a sort. But the big work of the creative mind steps forward into new frontiers altogether. Finally, the respectful mind concerns what Gardner calls “neigh- borhood morality,” our strong sense of relationship to and commit- ment to individuals and kinds of people close to and familiar to us; but the ethical mind concerns morality generalized beyond the local tribe to embrace our diverse world. Accordingly, Gardner’s five minds give us an umbrella perspective on the kinds of capabilities and dispositions worth fostering in the name of big know-how. ■ ■ ■ What’s most notable across these and other frameworks in similar spirit is their ambition to propose another kind of knowledge that needs atten- tion: personal and interpersonal know-how of broad significance to the lives learners are likely to live—what we are calling big know-how in analogy to the big understandings and big questions of previous chapters. The job of any curriculum is to lay out what ought to be taught and learned. The classic curriculum reflects the familiar disciplines: mathematics, history, science, languages, and so on. Throughout this book, I’ve argued that the familiar disciplines offer lifeworthy learning in abundance, with smart sampling for big understandings and big questions. Chapter 8 explored how to update discipline-based learning by renewing and reframing the disciplines and introducing crosstopics. 208 future wise That’s a lot already, and now we hear other voices urging the impor- tance of big know-how. Fitting it all into an effective arc of education poses significant challenges of teaching and what know-how to teach. Teaching Big Know-How Thinking skills are on most lists of big know-how. Therefore, every Tuesday and Thursday morning, we should have a thinking skills les- son, right? Usually that’s not the way it goes. To be sure, thinking skills can be taught effectively in stand-alone courses, and so can other sorts of big know-how. When there is a natural opportunity, it’s worth taking. However, this could easily get out of hand. Imagine the scheduling problems of introducing a dozen new big-know-how courses on such themes as leadership, civic virtues, learning to learn, creative think- ing, or systems thinking. Most frameworks for big know-how do not espouse that unwieldy approach. Instead, they envision teaching big know-how and content together. One reason is simply the logjam that a dozen new courses would create. Another is that including big know-how across several contexts is likely to foster transfer far and wide in learners’ lives. Still another, just as important, is that weaving big know-how into content learning helps teach the content better, especially when we want not just information but understanding and not just understand- ing of but understanding with. Students will learn about Newton’s laws, Shakespeare, or the law of supply and demand more meaningfully and deeply through engaging these themes with critical and creative think- ing. They will learn about contemporary energy sources, justice systems, and problems of democracy more meaningfully and deeply through systematic processes of collaboration, multiple modes of refined com- munication, and skills of accessing and evaluating information from sources such as the Internet. So what should the weave look like? Remembering that this book focuses on the challenge of what’s worth learning, not how to teach it, a few broad remarks and a couple of references will have to do. Big Know-How 209 For a number of years, advocates of critical and creative thinking have found ways to put thinking and content together. This is gener- ally called an infusion approach, a term introduced by Robert Swartz, in contrast with a stand-alone approach that offers separate courses on thinking skills. In an infusion treatment of, say, thinking about matters from others’ perspectives, students studying the American Revolution might divide into several groups and do some role playing, interpreting events from such perspectives as Americans resentful of the British, Americans with a strong sense of British identity, shipping merchants, King George, and so on. For scientific thinking, students studying ideas from biology might imagine how an idea in the textbook could be tested and perhaps conduct a simple experiment. For analyz- ing big issues, students confronting the challenge of energy resources for the coming century could conduct an energy inventory of their own community, identifying the current energy demands, current energy sources, and trends that suggest what the pattern might be in ten or twenty years. For such activities, students generally would learn simple think- ing strategies. Many examples of this sort appear in the literature. For instance, veterans of the thinking skills movement Robert Swartz, Art Costa, Barry Beyer, Rebecca Regan, and Bena Kallick develop an exten- sive repertoire of strategies and examples in Thinking-Based Learning. The Thinking Classroom by Shari Tishman, Eileen Jay, and me provides a helpful tool kit. More recently colleagues and I have worked on an infusion approach, called in different versions Visible Thinking or Artful Thinking or Cultures of Thinking. A fine source is Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison. There is a certain art to infusing the teaching of thinking into con- tent learning. Sometimes teachers think it’s enough simply to establish a generally thoughtful atmosphere in a classroom, with regular expec- tations for thinking critically and creatively. Indeed, fostering such a culture is important, especially for the cultivation of dispositions of critical and creative thinking—attitudinal commitments woven into learners’ personalities. However, atmosphere isn’t enough. The evidence suggests that many students will not pick up the required techniques through 210 future wise osmosis. They need to learn explicit concepts and strategies helpful for supporting critical and creative thinking as such. The concepts and strategies have to be explained, put into action, and revisited periodi- cally in order to keep them alive and make them part of learners’ rep- ertoires. Typically introducing concepts and strategies does not require much time and happens in the middle of content lessons, not in sepa- rate lessons. But taking that little bit of time is important. A major hazard of the infusion approach is tokenism. Maybe twice a week, for example, students make a pro-and-con list around an issue and discuss it, or maybe every couple of weeks, students conduct a structured debate. If that’s it, that’s not nearly enough to foster the development of thinking or deepen content learning. But the pressures of moving through the content curriculum can easily reduce systematic attention to thinking to merely a token presence. The cost is shallower learning of the content, not just slighting the thinking. What’s been learned for thinking skills applies broadly to any sort of big know-how. Consider the twenty-first-century theme of civic par- ticipation. Besides learning about the idea of civic participation and modes of civic participation through historical and contemporary sources, students might explore opportunities for civic participation in the school itself. What would it look like? How meaningful might it be? Students might interview their parents about what civic participa- tion meant to them and consider the different perspectives revealed— probably everything from cynical nonparticipation to ardent activism. Students might go out into the community and shadow individuals particularly active in the community, reflect on those experiences, and ponder whom they most admired and why. Again, explicitness is important. All of this could be organized around a few big ideas and strategies for civic participation. And again, tokenism is a risk. Serious attention to big know-how around civic par- ticipation requires not just touching the theme every couple of weeks but engaging it regularly and seriously associating it with content from history, social studies, and related disciplines. With some sense of how to teach big know-how, let’s look again at what big know-how we might teach. Big Know-How 211 Mapping Big Know-How The frameworks I have mentioned and others like them wrap their arms around much big know-how of clear importance for today’s and tomor- row’s learners. But just how wide are those arms? How comprehensive are they in mapping the universe of big know-how? Try This Consider some of the big know-how important in your life. Can you find something that seems to be missing from the frame- works discussed above? Here’s my try at the same exploration. A look across a number of these frameworks suggests that critical and creative thinking almost always make an appearance. However, to name one tremendously important theme, complex causal thinking almost never shows up. Our world is full of complex causality: causal loops and spirals, events with multiple contributing causes, chaotic oscillations in the weather, the stock market, the ecology. Understanding complex causal systems is fundamental to navigating the contemporary world, yet complex causality gets no more than an occasional nod under the label of systems thinking. Help is at hand–for instance, from Tina Grotzer’s Learning Causality in a Complex World, a research-based and practically oriented examination of the challenges of complex causality and how to address them. Grotzer notes how we tend to think in terms of simple linear causality: the bowling ball knocks over the pins. However, the world and our lives teem with more complex causal patterns, for instance, mutual causal- ity, when two things influence one another at the same time (gravity keeps our feet on the ground, but it’s not just because the Earth pulls us; our mass pulls on the Earth as well) or relational causality, where a consequence depends on a relationship between multiple variables 212 future wise (things float when less dense than the liquid they rest in, a matter of the ratio of mass and volume). Awakening learners to these more complex patterns is half the bat- tle. The other half concerns how easily we can overlook what’s going on. Drawn to salient events, we may, for instance, never ask what keeps sys- tems constant, miss probabilistic patterns that play out only now and again, and neglect possible causal influences far away in time and space. For another gap, frameworks for twenty-first-century skills gener- ally foreground know-how related to professional and civic activities: effective communications and collaboration, understanding and using media, leadership, and so on. In contrast, the frameworks tend not to say much about engagement in the arts. Mentioning the arts here may seem surprising. However, these days almost everyone commits considerable personal time to some kind of engagement with one or another art, popular or more elevated: listen- ing to music, enjoying cinema, following television comedies or dramas. Beyond that, classical music, the visual arts, dance, theater, and more all have their followings. Many pursue nonprofessional creative interests in one or another art. Then there are the decorative and architectural arts, which we all encounter and deal with in our personal living spaces. At a minimum, engagement in the arts is a major quality-of-life factor. Yet education leaves most people remarkably unprepared for the rich- ness of artistic activities. For a further example, while attention to the biology of our world and its precarious ecological dips and swings routinely figures in these frameworks, not so common is attention to something as fundamental as personal and family health care. In other words, although typical frameworks for twenty-first- century big know-how include a lot, it’s not hard to find important areas they neglect. Why does this happen? Well, we have to recognize the challenges of constructing such frameworks. To be manageable guides to educational practice, they try to keep the story simple. Also, to get political traction in the always contentious world of education, they need to sound right to broad constituencies with civic and work- place concerns. Actually it’s far from clear that such frameworks should be comprehensive. Sometimes less is more. Big Know-How 213 Nonetheless, there’s some value in looking across the wide pano- rama of personal and interpersonal know-how. In that spirit, I’ve tried to construct an especially broad framework by drawing on a number and tossing in some generally neglected themes. Here it is, something closer to a map of the universe of personal and interpersonal know- how, acknowledging that the two overlap somewhat: Personal Know-How Interpersonal Know-How 1. Personal and family health 1. Personal relationships, devel- care oping and maintaining 2. Critical and creative thinking 2. Social skills and commit- 3. Thinking for understanding, ments, competence, grace including complex causality 3. Professional relationships 4. Personal decision making 4. Collaboration—informal and 5. Ways of knowing within and formal beyond the disciplines (e.g., 5. Effective expression and religious, intuitive, percep- communication orally, in tual discernment) writing, and in various 6. Learning to learn, including media discovering and developing 6. Leadership, collaboration, areas of special enthusiasm and followership in profes- or need sional contexts 7. Self-management: satisfac- 7. Ethical insight and concern tion and fulfillment, self- 8. Developing group identities: control, farsightedness national, ethnic, religious, 8. Involvement in the arts and professional, family aesthetics 9. Civic capabilities and com- 9. Involvement in physical and mitments at various levels— sports activities community, state, nation, 10. Media understanding and world capability 10. Global perspectives on 11. Technological understanding economics, ecology, politics, and capability and others; understanding 12. Economic understanding of the world as a system of and capability systems 214 future wise Let’s be clear about the significance of these lists. I’m not suggest- ing that this is a better framework than all those others. In practical terms, more comprehensive isn’t necessarily better. Also, I’m not sug- gesting that this framework is complete. Readers may want to take another pass at the Try This box from earlier in the chapter, fishing for what’s missing in this one. The idea is simply this: as we think about the place of personal and interpersonal know-how in education today, it’s useful to have a fairly comprehensive map of what personal and interpersonal know- how might include. Such a map puts us in a better position to con- sider the place and construction of specific teaching frameworks for big know-how. Accommodating Big Know-How So what’s a good practical list of big know-how? It’s not the super list just introduced, which offers perspective, not prescription. Perhaps it’s the twenty-first-century skills framework or the Key Competences for Lifelong Learning outlined earlier, or another not reviewed here. However, the question is hard to engage without facing up to a major problem—an elephant in the room. So here’s the elephant. The literature around big know-how does very little to acknowledge how really elephantine it is. Looking across a number of frameworks, we find a few apparently simple categories at the top level, but typically subcategories underneath those, and often more within those. Or when we don’t, when the list seems lean and mean, it’s an illusion, a few general themes that sound good but don’t translate readily into classroom action without a lot more detail. In other words, any of these frameworks asks a great deal of schools, and that’s not even considering how much they leave out by the measure of the superframework at the end of the previous section. The elephant gets even bigger when we recognize what’s needed to cultivate meaningful learning around just about any area of personal and interpersonal know-how. Let’s take learning to learn, an entry on Big Know-How 215 most of these lists. Contemporary learning science has much to say about how people can manage their learning better: active process- ing, relating new knowledge to things you already know, constructing mental models, connecting the here-and-now topic to other facets of your life, revisiting ideas to keep them fresh, and so on. Some of this lore appears in chapter 7 of my Making Learning Whole, along with ideas about how to teach it, but of course there are many sources. Translated into practical advice, the most important principles probably could fit into two or three pages, less than 1 percent the size of a typical textbook. With a “textbook” for learning to learn only two or three pages long, optimists might conclude that students could learn to learn quickly. Here’s the catch: teaching for know-how about learning to learn is a much more time-consuming enterprise than teaching for just having the ideas. To be sure, we can introduce students to good ideas about learning quite quickly. However, knowing the principles falls very far from putting them to work reliably and confidently across a range of cir- cumstances. Building active know-how requires much more attention. It’s kind of like learning a sport. The basics of almost any sport can be explained and demonstrated quite quickly. But building even a mod- est competence with the sport requires significant engagement and coaching. Developing know-how is more like learning a sport or craft than learning information about a topic. For one reason, know-how calls for translating knowledge-in-principle into knowledge-in-action. For another reason, tacit knowledge figures importantly in know-how. Any sport or craft involves a huge amount of tacit knowledge in addi- tion to explicit principles. That tacit knowledge grows largely through experience in diverse circumstances with a bit of supportive coaching. Here’s another example. Frameworks for big know-how usually include communication skills in one form or another. Let’s ponder skills of oral communication—matters such as paying attention, tak- ing turns, showing understanding, foregrounding the key message, and so on. As in the case of learning to learn, the most important points could be stated in two or three pages. But again, the brevity of the “text” underestimates the time and attention needed to build genuine skill 216 future wise in the area because of the tacit knowledge that needs to grow through diverse experience. The elephant starts to look even bigger yet when we remind our- selves that there’s not that much room in the room. The content cur- riculum is already crowded. To be sure, much of the crowding today comes from niche understandings not worth learning. However, recall how the room would still be crowded even if we reorganized to focus on big understandings and questions because there is so much lifeworthy content once one goes looking for it. In summary, here are the factors that make big know-how a really big elephant in the classroom: ● A reasonably comprehensive map of big know-how is very big. ● Typical lists of big know-how for teaching are bigger than they look, because of subcategories or needed subcategories. ● Big know-how that is genuinely part of learners’ behaviors and mind-sets calls for much more learning time than suggested by telegraphic descriptions of the principles and dispositions. There’s not that much room in the room. So how can we think bet- ter about solving the elephant problem? How can we think better about getting big know-how to fit? Choosing Big Know-How Big know-how is not the first elephant we’ve seen in this book. When we looked at big understandings in chapter 3, we found far too much lifeworthy content to teach. Big know-how makes the room even more crowded. So it’s worth remembering a kind of solution explored earlier. Teachers of literature routinely deal with the impossible volume of good literature that might be taught through smart sampling, a clever strat- egy involving individual choices exercised within a general framework. The trick was to sample from works of literature following two broad guidelines, typically supplemented by lists of priority works: (1) choose Big Know-How 217 individual works for their strong qualities, and (2) choose for a diverse ensemble, varied in style, focus, origins, and points of view. Smart sampling could be the way to go here as well. Just as the abundance of big understandings calls for sampling, so does the abun- dance of big know-how, toward constructing manageable frameworks that function synergistically with learning in the disciplines and cross- topics. Smart sampling inevitably means leaving many worthwhile things out. So it goes! We do this toward meaningful robust learning for what’s left in. Since we’re sampling, we might ask what’s the best sample of big know-how. But of course there is no one perfect list, any more than there is one best bucket system for content learning or one collection of finest poems that everyone should read. The notion that we can identify just the right selection of big know-how for everyone everywhere, trim enough to fit and more important to teach than any of the alternatives, the notion that we can understand the context and navigate the trade- offs and foresee the future well enough, is simply naive. We are abso- lutely and inevitably in the world that teachers of literature occupy all the time, with far more of worth than can possibly get attention. So what to do? Short of making up your own, a reasonable first step is to adopt as a starting point one of the carefully developed frame- works—maybe the framework for twenty-first-century skills or the framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, or some other. The framework will not be comprehensive, but no comprehensive framework would fit. A second step recognizes that even those frameworks are too large; they are elephants in themselves. Accordingly, priorities are needed inside the chosen framework. A helpful criterion looks to what big know-how invites development in the school context. Typical frameworks are not necessarily careful about this. Leadership, a theme many of the big know-how frameworks include, is a good case in point. Schools are fine for learning about lead- ership, but not so fine for cultivating the experiential side of leadership and building up that tacit knowledge. How many opportunities are there to practice leadership in schools versus, say, the world of business 218 future wise or the world of civic participation? Yes, one can organize small-scale experiences around leadership—let’s say leadership in small groups undertaking project-based learning—but that’s about it. Try This Looking back at the superlist as a convenient source, what are three or four items that seem to you not particularly well suited to school learning for know-how, although students might usefully learn about them? To put this another way, our real question is not just what’s worth learning but what’s worth learning where. Schools are not always the best where. Pondering this helps trim the elephant—not by saying that we should dismiss themes like leadership but rather by saying that the opportunities for developing deep know-how are intrinsically more limited than for something like thinking skills or learning to learn. As usual, the moral comes down to something like this: big choices have to be made, there is no one best choice, but there are better choices and many bad choices. Administrators and politicians are likely to find this far too haphazard. They will worry whether individual teachers, or school boards, or state school boards, or panels of experts can choose well. My own sense is that teacher judgment in such matters is typically right on rather than off the wall. However, to reduce blood pressure all around, let’s say about big know-how something we’ve said before about big understandings and big questions. To suggest that there is no one best framework for big know-how is not to suggest that all choice has to be at the individual classroom level. A school or a state or nation might adopt a pattern for the convenience of coordination and systematization, as the European Union has done. One can do this while recognizing that there are other good patterns that might look somewhat different and while welcoming local priorities within whatever framework rules. An especially graceful version of this is the literary model. Recall from chapter 3 how smart sampling in literature operates. There are Big Know-How 219 guidelines: lists of high-priority works, principles about how many to choose from this or that subcategory, important cross-cutting themes to make visible through the chosen works, and so on. Within those guidelines, teachers exercise discretion to pursue insights and enthu- siasms that energize their own practice and align well with their par- ticular students. In abandoning the quest for one-size-fits-all, the smart sampling approach does not embrace the idea that any old size will do. Instead, smart sampling involves guided coordination within diversity, an approach that makes sense for the realities of what’s worth learning and for the realities of the contemporary world. The Inverted Curriculum Call big know-how what you will: twenty-first-century skills, key com- petencies, or something else. Over the past decade, what we’ve called big know-how, with its attention to personal and interpersonal know- how of broad significance, has brought a new vision to education. Big know-how points to broad capabilities and dispositions tremendously important to living and thriving in today’s world. The standards and curricula of schools, school systems, states, and nations are coming to reflect this. It’s plain that the attention to big know-how has been in part a response to a curriculum overcrowded with content that scores poorly on lifeworthiness and neglects learners’ personal, civic, and pro- fessional needs. A number of frameworks give us lists of big know-how and approaches toward developing it. So we have the very real promise, along with some ways of manag- ing the elephant and other problems that come with the promise. But then there’s the fear: the fear of the inverted curriculum—that attention to big know-how will turn everything upside down, that big know-how might almost displace the disciplines. If this sounds overly paranoid, notice how often fears of this sort get headlined by various critics of thinking skills or learning to think like a scientist or learning to learn or the like. Critics often raise the alarm that such fluff threatens to displace real substantive learning. 220 future wise They worry that schools will become all about “process” and not about content. They forecast an inverted curriculum, and, to them, it’s a per- verted curriculum. Personally, I don’t think this fear in its extreme form is very real- istic. One reason is political, the other functional. Politically, learning in the traditional disciplines has far too much momentum to be so deftly dethroned by the young Prince of Big Know-How. Functionally, big know-how cannot operate in a vacuum. It needs content to operate with and on. You cannot practice thinking skills well without some- thing substantive to think about. You cannot develop civic sensitivities and capabilities without paying some attention to the shape of civic life in communities. You cannot develop responsible perspectives on global problems without coming to understand what they are. And so on. Accordingly, there’s little reason for worry about the inverted curric- ulum at the rant-and-rave level. However, there is a more moderate and legitimate worry. It’s not a worry that comes down pro or con, but one that does challenge any- one thoughtful about education to confront a problem of balance. The worry traces back to the elephant in the room. Here’s the worry: very likely, serious attention to big know-how will require sacrificing some number of big understandings and ques- tions, not just niche understandings and questions. After all, we already expect to be making hard choices among different big understandings and questions in the spirit of smart sampling. We also would have to be making hard choices between big know-how and some big under- standings in the same spirit. There are thoughtful educators who would absolutely hate this notion. However, there is no reason that big understandings and questions should always trump big know-how. In the creative turmoil of sorting out ways forward, there are bound to be some trade-offs. Therefore, if we take big know-how seriously, what’s looming here is not the curriculum inverted but the curriculum shaken and stirred, prior- ities reconsidered in ways that sometimes may be unsettling. Ultimately this is good. We don’t want inverted curricula, but we do want recali- brated curricula—recalibrated for the lives learners are likely to live. Big Know-How 221 reimagining educaTion The conversation to have: Weaving twenty-first-century skills and related themes into education for the learners and context. Quest 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning You, me, or anyone else who tracks education will have noticed a sea change in recent years about what’s thought to be worth teaching and learning. A number of frameworks have appeared promoting the teaching of important life capabilities such as cre- ative and critical thinking, collaboration, leadership, communi- cations skills, self-management, and more. These often sail under such flags as twenty-first-century skills or competences. Here we call them big know-how. Like big understandings, big questions, and ways of knowing, big know-how potentially offers that powerful quartet of insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Sometimes characterized as skills, big know-how is also strongly attitudinal or dispositional. For instance, when frame- works include creativity, they look toward not just the technical competences of divergent thinking but the passion to create. When frameworks include self-management, they look toward not just strategies of self-management but responsibility and com- mitment. Of course, that’s what we want: not just the capability in principle but also the motivation to mobilize that capability. Quest 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning Frameworks for big know-how can easily strike us as relatively simple, with a few big categories. No need to choose, you might think. We can do everything! But the conversation is more complicated than that. When we drill down inside those categories, we discover considerable com- plexity. When we look at other frameworks, they often include 222 future wise different categories that also seem important. The bottom line is that as with big understandings, there is far too much big know- how to teach it all. Selectivity is essential, exercising the familiar strategy of smart sampling with attention to the richness and range. There are poor frameworks that sample in shallow and narrow ways and good frameworks that sample more effectively, but it’s not rea- sonable to expect an ultimate ideal framework. Quest 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning For the most part, educators approach big know-how through infusion rather than stand-alone instruction. That is, attention to big know-how gets woven into teaching and learning as orga- nized by the sorts of buckets discussed in the previous chapter rather than having its own class periods and courses. I hope this makes sense to you as it does to me, for multiple rea- sons. First, what a challenge it would be to find room for yet another set of buckets with their own class periods. Second, weaving in big know-how deepens learning in the disciplines and crosstopics. Third, that way, the big know-how finds diverse meaningful con- texts of application, fostering its robust development and transfer. Quest 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum Advocacy for big know-how leads some educators to worry about what might be called the inverted curriculum: the curriculum turned upside down, with learners spending all their time acquir- ing a range of processes like creative and critical thinking or col- laboration and missing substantive content. Reasonable conversations should recognize that this fear is overwrought. None of the serious frameworks for big know-how recommends anything of the sort. None of the serious frame- works doubts that the disciplines and crosstopics have enormous contributions to make. 10 Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom MahatMa Gandhi surely was one of the Most reMarkable fiGures of the twentieth century—some would say of the past several centuries. His vision of living amicably together in a complex world not only served the cause of independence in India but seeded similar actions elsewhere. His commitment to peaceful but assertive political action toward right- ing wrongs was inspiring and inspiringly strategic. Even in small moments, the strength of his vision came through. One example is the well-known story of Gandhi’s second sandal. It goes like this. Gandhi was boarding a train with some colleagues. As he did so, one of his sandals slipped off, falling to the ground. The train had already started to move, and Gandhi could not retrieve the sandal. In an instant, he took off his other sandal and tossed it after the first one. His action startled his colleagues. “Why did you do that?” they asked. Gandhi had a ready reply. A poor person might find the one sandal, but what good will that do? Two sandals, on the other hand, will help. People cherish the story as a marvelous example of a charitable act. And so it is, on a small scale, seizing a singular moment. We can also celebrate it as a knowledgeable act. Notice how Gandhi’s gesture reflects understanding of a range of circumstances: the way the lives of poor people depend on precious moments of opportunity, 223 224 future wise the utility of a pair of sandals compared to just one, the difficulties of retrieving the lost sandal with the train in motion. These are broad practical understandings about the way the world works. They are not particularly academic or technical, but very real in their implications. In fact, our criteria for big understandings deserve a look here. Gandhi saw the opportunity, with insight into the circumstances, and seized the moment for action, expressing his ethical commitments. Not bad for a few seconds stepping onto a train! Accordingly, we can also celebrate his action as creative, reminding us of the twenty-first-century skills reviewed in the previous chapter. To recognize its out-of-the-box character, we need only remind ourselves what the box of our own thinking most likely would have been like in the same situation: Oh, my sandal. I’ve lost it! Can I get it back? No, the train is moving! Where will I get another sandal? Can I borrow one from a friend? Can I buy a pair at the next station? What could be more natural than such a train of thought? But Gandhi was aboard a different train of thought. Instead of boxed in by worries about what he would do for a second sandal, he thought about what someone else—a poor person poking around the tracks—would do for a second sandal. Finally, this story often gets celebrated as an example of wisdom. Gandhi is one of those figures we generally think of as wise, and here is his wisdom in motion: insight, action, and ethics all flowering in a moment of opportunity. So with Gandhi’s sandal comes a provocative question: In teach- ing for truly lifeworthy learning, might we hope to teach for wisdom? This is perhaps too glorious an aspiration, perhaps simply presump- tuous. Yet the idea of teaching if not for wisdom at least toward wisdom would be spring water compared to the swamp of education that is mired in nothing but achievement, information, and technical expertise. So let’s at least hold on to the possibility of teaching toward wis- dom. Let’s remind ourselves why education faces a crisis of content today pivoting on the question what’s worth learning. Let’s sum up Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 225 what’s been said in these pages toward an answer, not declaring the now-and-forever template but offering a better tool kit for everyone to think about what’s worth learning. Then let’s come to back the pros- pect of teaching toward wisdom. Yesterday on the Way to Tomorrow It hasn’t passed anyone’s notice that we live in a complicated era. The information explosion, digital worlds, globalization, looming limita- tions of resources such as petroleum and water, the shift from manufac- turing to service industries in many quarters, the information economy, and dozens of other factors make today’s world more demanding of rich knowledge and sophisticated thinking and collaboration than the world in which our parents grew up. These trends seem likely to con- tinue to shape tomorrow’s world in ways not so readily forecast. Truly we need to educate for the unknown. Moreover, the disciplines that traditionally have provided the basis for education are not what they used to be: they are much more, and somewhat different. The universe of what might be worth learn- ing is expanding a lot. Updated and hybrid versions of many disci- plines have emerged, including such areas as sociobiology, behavioral economics, big history, and evolutionary psychology. In many aspects, these are notably more relevant and exciting than traditional content. The maturation of the psychological, social, and biological sciences has given us much more to say about how individuals and societies might thrive than they did several decades ago. Deeper and broader knowledge about the continuities between humankind, our nearest primate relatives, and more generally the biosphere speaks in powerful ways about how to live fairly and fruitfully with other creatures, the planet, and ourselves. So yesterday-on-the-way-to-tomorrow is a troubling tide, erod- ing the roads of traditional education and provoking us to build new ones. Many educators have been attentive. To chart at least some of the 226 future wise expanding universe of what’s worth learning, the Introduction identi- fied several notable trends as the six beyonds: 1. Beyond basic skills—twenty-first-century skills and dispositions 2. Beyond the traditional disciplines—renewed, hybrid, and less familiar disciplines 3. Beyond discrete disciplines—interdisciplinary topics and problems 4. Beyond regional perspectives—global perspectives, problems, and studies 5. Beyond mastering content—learning to think about the world with the content 6. Beyond prescribed content—much more choice of what to learn These trends implicitly acknowledge a two-pronged crisis in educa- tion. For one prong, much of what we typically teach most likely won’t matter to learners’ lives. It doesn’t offer very good return on investment. For the other, there is much we don’t typically teach that likely would matter a lot—better return. So we have a somewhat quiet crisis of content, quiet not for utter lack of voices but because other concerns in education tend to muf- fle them. Chapter 2 noted three agendas competing with the question of what’s worth learning: achievement, information, and expertise. All three are worthy as far as they go. Of course, we want achievement. For information instantly available, not even Google can beat our own prepared minds. Technical expertise in a range of disciplines has both intrinsic value and potential professional value. However, none of these three raises pointed questions about typical content. The idea is to achieve, get informed, and build toward expertise around that typical content. The traditional hierarchical structure of education diagrammed in chapter 2 holds this paradigm in place: good learning means learning well what’s traditionally on offer. This is not a smart strategy in light of the small world para- dox: as our collective world gets smaller, the worlds we individually engage become more numerous and complex. The networked mobile Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 227 cosmopolitan lives people tend to live today recommend an educa- tional structure more supportive of cross-connections among students, knowledge sources, and contemporary challenges of a complex society. In other words, it needs to be something much more like a relatively flexible network than a relatively fixed hierarchy. Learning on the Way to Lifeworthy All this adds up to an urgent call to rethink what’s worth learning. For precollege education truly to prepare today’s learners for tomor- row, typical content demands rethinking, often radical rethinking. We need new ways to appraise what’s worth learning, ways that look to the lives learners are likely to live. We need genuinely lifeworthy learning. We need high-leverage knowledge and understanding that pays off in direct applications and fuels further lifelong learning in multiple ways on multiple fronts practical, political, social, and aesthetic. (The same might be said for some college education; I’ll comment on that later.) Of course, we know what the problem is by now: “What’s worth learning?” is an impossible question. What is impossible about it is not that it cannot be answered. Every textbook, every lesson plan, every cur- riculum offers part of an answer. What’s impossible about it is that the question resists the perfect answer. What’s worth learning for whom? For when? For what context? And there’s so much we might choose from! The perfect answer really is impossible. But the real problem is a little different. The real problem is not so much the absence of a perfectly good answer as the presence of many not-so-good answers to the impossible question. Most of those text- books, lesson plans, and curricula would score lowish on lifeworthi- ness. What we really need is not the ultimate universal curriculum but reasonably good answers instead of rather poor ones. My promise at the beginning of this book was not to expound a one best curriculum but explore better ways of thinking toward better answers. My hope is that we can reimagine education for lifeworthy learning. 228 future wise Try This Try the better way of thinking described here or something in its neighborhood. Put it through its paces a little bit, in ways appro- priate to you, no matter whether you are a teacher, an educational leader, a parent, a student, or a politician concerned with educa- tion, or you occupy some other role. Reimagine education for life- worthy learning. Discover where it takes you. Here in this last chapter, let me sum up how. Once again, we’ll make use of the four quests introduced at the end of the first chap- ter. Together, these quests invite anyone concerned with education into a conversation reimagining education for the relevant learners and context: 1. Identifying lifeworthy learning, sorting it out from niche learning 2. Choosing lifeworthy learning for educational attention from among the innumerable possibilities 3. Teaching for lifeworthy learning in ways that make what’s life- worthy in principle lifeready in practice 4. Constructing a lifeworthy curriculum Quest 1: Identifying Lifeworthy Learning Before we even think about constructing a lifeworthy curriculum, before we can teach anything for lifeworthy learning, and before we can even choose just what lifeworthy learning to teach, there’s a foundational conversational challenge. We have to gauge degrees of lifeworthiness. We have to distinguish what’s likely to prove lifeworthy from the niche learning that may sit comfortably within one or another disciplinary canon but serves most learners poorly in the long term. Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 229 A Fundamental Act of Educational Imagination Of course, what’s going to prove lifeworthy is a prediction in the face of uncertainty. We can’t know for sure how today’s learners are going to live their lives or what the world is going to be like in twenty or thirty or fifty years. Our sense of what’s worth learning is a bet, not a sure thing. But we can make good bets rather than poor ones. We can imagine what those lives and what our world are most likely to be like, and we can hedge our bets by looking toward learning that promises payoffs in diverse circumstances. Big Understandings and Big Questions We as teachers, parents, educational leaders, and indeed students can look for lifeworthy learning by identifying big understandings and big questions drawn from the disciplines and beyond, in contrast with the niche understandings and questions that clutter the typical curriculum (chapters 3 and 4). From big understandings and questions, we expect these three payoffs: ● Orientation. Big understandings and questions orient learners better to whatever they encounter, because they see connections more readily. Everyday experience, including news sources and conversations, simply makes more sense. ● Deliberation. Big understandings and questions prepare learners to deliberate about personal choices, policies, political actions, and the like because they have more to work with. ● Further learning. Big understandings and questions empower fur- ther learning lifelong by providing more of a foundation. Insight, Action, Ethics, and Opportunity But what makes an understanding or a question “big”? It’s not hard to suggest some criteria to fuel our conversation (chapter 3). Broadly 230 future wise speaking, big understandings or questions are big in the lives learners are likely to live. More specifically, they are big in these ways: ● Big in insight. This asks whether the content in question will likely yield insight as learners move forward in life. Does the content reveal something with life significance, practical or intellectual, about the physical, social, political, financial, or any other side of the world? ● Big in action. This asks whether the content in question will likely inform action, for instance, making professional and political choices, managing interpersonal relationships, formulating plans, engaging the arts, and pursuing intellectual interests. ● Big in ethics. This asks whether the content in question will likely shape ethical judgments and decisions around personal, interpersonal, civic, and global matters. ● Big in opportunity. This asks whether the content will likely come up often in important contexts, with its offering of insight, action, or ethics. How a particular piece of content scores on insight, action, eth- ics, and opportunity is a matter of degree. That said, it’s important to remember that many understandings big in their disciplines would not score well as big understandings in the sense of lifeworthiness: they may deliver important insight in the context of the discipline, but beyond that they do not inform action, speak to ethics, or indeed come up very much—opportunity. “Big” as a Smart Bet Judging what’s a big understanding or question involves speculation about the kinds of lives learners are likely to live. Broad trends in society and broad fronts of life that almost everyone engages (e.g., civic matters, health, economic self-management, one’s identity in historical context, enjoyment of and insight into various arts) inform Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 231 intelligent speculation. Even so, our thoughtful conversations will yield somewhat different forecasts from context to context and cul- ture to culture. There’s no help for that. We have to predict as best we can what might prove lifeworthy in trend. It’s part of the challenge of education to make a smart bet, knowing that sometimes we’ll be wrong. Niches for Niche Understandings What happens to niche understandings—those understandings that do not score very well on the four criteria? Remember that such topics are not necessarily unimportant in a sweeping sense; they may play central roles in their home disciplines. Nor are they necessarily uninteresting; they often can be taught and learned in very interesting ways. The problem is that they do not speak broadly to the lives learners are likely to live. Accordingly, as time goes on, they do not receive much elaboration or reinforcement, and we forget anything but the most superficial sense of them. So how might education treat them? They do not necessarily dis- appear. To be sure, some might get dumped in the midden of educa- tions past. But some might survive as acquaintance knowledge for most learners, briefly addressed to support general familiarity with a field but not receiving extended attention. This is one likely destiny for quadratic equations, the bad boy example of chapter 1. Some would certainly remain strong presences in specialty studies available in high school, studies for those particularly enthusiastic about particular subjects and perhaps exploring professional directions. This is an additional likely destiny for quadratic equations. Besides what- ever the local school can offer, various forms of online learning, often combined with face-to-face mentoring, make it relatively easy to offer a range of specialty studies today. Finally, some might get makeovers into genuine big understand- ings for many or most learners. Chapter 3 explored how this might be done even for bad boy quadratic equations. 232 future wise The Disciplines as Sources If we are choosing big understandings and questions, where do we find the menu? We can discover a gorgeous array of possibilities in the disci- plines, which are rich with lifeworthy learning (chapter 5). Please remem- ber that in no way is this critique of conventional education a slam at the disciplines as such. Rather, it’s a worry about the content selected for routine inclusion in typical curricula. Remember also that as we sift through the disciplines, we need to consider them in updated and extended versions, including newly emerging and hybrid disciplines, not so much the mathematics or his- tory your mother or father studied. Ways of Knowing The conversation needs to include ways of knowing—how thinking and action in the disciplines and in other professional and informal areas beyond the disciplines work, what it means to justify, to explain, to decide, to create in various contexts, because the shape of these fundamental processes differs significantly. Besides lifeworthy disciplinary content, ways of knowing are among the most powerful ideas students can learn (chapter 7). Sometimes teachers in particular disciplines say, “Well, that’s the true justification for not-so-lifeworthy content; such content is often a gymnasium for developing thinking in the discipline.” I’ve heard that said for quadratic equations. There are two problems with this. First, often such content (say, quadratic equations) gets taught in routine ways unlikely to cultivate thinking in the discipline. Second, have a twofer: choose lifeworthy top- ics and teach them in ways that cultivate thinking in the discipline. It’s not that hard once one begins to question the conventions of the traditional curriculum. Big Know-How: Twenty-First-Century Skills and Their Relatives We as teachers, parents, educational leaders, and students can choose to cultivate big personal and interpersonal know-how—broad areas of Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 233 skill and disposition especially suited to the complex personal, social, civic, economic, and professional lives of our era. We can choose to build these skills, such as creative and critical thinking, collaboration, global competencies, ecological awareness and action, or insight into processes of conflict and their resolution (chapter 9). Quest 2: Choosing Lifeworthy Learning To identify lifeworthy learning is to let a thousand flowers bloom (actu- ally more like a million). As I mentioned often in earlier chapters, the universe of what’s worth learning is expanding enormously. The search for big understandings and questions reveals a firmament by far too vast for the years of precollege education, or indeed for college, to han- dle. We as teachers, parents, educational leaders, and students must choose what’s to be taught not simply by filtering out niche under- standings and questions but selecting sharply among big understand- ings and questions. Smart Sampling One useful strategy is the smart sampling approach so characteristic in teaching literature, where the problem of choice has long been recog- nized as intrinsic. Our conversations can embrace the reality that any- thing like coverage is impossible, sampling is essential, and sampling can be smart or not so smart (chapter 3 here and below). Reaching for Richness We can look toward criteria of richness: topics, themes, and works exem- plary of their kind, accessible and resonant for the learners in question, and offering the breadth of the particular as a home for the general. Reaching for Range We can also look toward calculated variety: selecting across types and gen- res, selecting close to home and far away, selecting for different perspectives. 234 future wise Balancing Coherence and Flexibility Smart sampling does not mean that every teacher’s, every school’s, and every nation’s choices about what’s worth learning will look completely different. If it did, that would not be so smart. This doesn’t happen in literature, and it need not happen in any other area. There can be some “musts” and some high-priority choices. There can be enough overlap so that learners can travel from one school to another without get- ting disoriented. Even so, any reasonable and fruitful answer to what’s worth learning will inevitably be a sample, with no pretense that it can be otherwise. So the impossible question has rather good answers along these lines—imperfect because we can’t do it all, imperfect because needs and opportunities inevitably will differ in all sorts of ways, but nonetheless committed to lifeworthy learning, to knowledge on the way to wisdom. Who Chooses? This is a good moment to touch on a rather fundamental question: Who chooses? Who identifies the candidate big understandings and questions and decides which ones to teach? Is it teachers, school boards, departments of education, disciplinary experts, some balanced mix? The several interest groups involved make this question political and complicated. I have an opinion. Broadly speaking, I like the literary model of smart sampling. That model typically involves some broad group des- ignating high-priority topics and maybe some musts but with latitude for local decision making about which to select and whether to range beyond the suggestions. This provides both reasonable coherence and fertile flexibility. However, in the big picture, I’m more concerned about good deci- sions than I am about who makes them. Current choices often blindly privilege traditional niche topics over lifeworthy learning. Whoever decides, we need them to decide in a more enlightened way. I’m hoping that the concepts in this book can inform that process. Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 235 When Learners Choose Many students have some choice in what they study. However, some innovative schools make student choice the mainstay of their approach to learning. Students themselves pretty much call the curricular shots, defining the courses and content most meaningful to them. I’m not recommending sweepingly for or against this practice. Broadly, its promise seems to me to depend greatly on the kinds of students served, often students for whom conventional schooling just doesn’t work. In any case, we certainly have to ask: How do these ideas about big understandings and questions and smart sampling for rich- ness and range apply when students themselves make the choices? Really, this is an easy one. The tool kit offers the same support it would for any decision makers. Big understandings and questions and smart sampling for richness and range are considerations that students themselves can apply. There’s a natural worry of course: Are students really in a position to appraise such matters? Maybe they are not, especially younger stu- dents. However, remember the need for conversation. Programs of this sort always couple students closely with faculty who function as guides and mentors. Having a tool kit to work with certainly does not make the problem harder and might make it a little easier. Choosing Controversial Topics—or Not Finally, I touch on a theme that has come up only a time or two in this book: controversial topics. Some might worry that the pursuit of life- worthy learning would fill the curriculum with matters better left out— for example, matters concerning abortion or rival religions or measured critiques of “our” government, whoever “we” happen to be. I acknowledged in chapter 1 my personal preference for contem- porary education embracing sensitive areas. However, I haven’t made much of that in this book for a simple reason: it’s not the same issue as lifeworthy learning. To be sure, some controversies would score high on the four criteria of lifeworthiness, but some would not. More to the 236 future wise point, there are endless lifeworthy topics to choose from throughout any discipline and beyond, an argument I have made repeatedly in these chapters. If we want to, or in repressive contexts have to, avoid the hot tamales, we can. The agenda of lifeworthy learning should not stand or fall on our tolerance for controversial topics in schools. Quest 3: Teaching for Lifeworthy Learning This book focuses on what’s worth learning, not how to teach it. Much more about good teaching as I might think about it can be found in my Making Learning Whole, and of course there are many other sources. But we can’t keep teaching entirely on the back burner here. Without the right sort of teaching, the hoped-for payoffs of lifeworthy learning would not accrue as learners live their lives. Lifeready Learning To put a label on this, there’s a difference between lifeworthy and lifeready. What you know about economics, fractions arithmetic, or Picasso might be lifeworthy in principle, but that does not mean it’s lifeready: ready to connect richly to opportunities as they arise and deliver insight, action, or ethics. It’s naive to suppose that just because traces of knowledge lin- ger in some corner of memory, they are ready to go to work (chapter 5). Understanding as Thinking One prerequisite is that the knowledge has to have been learned in a thinking kind of way. Neither a corpus of memorized information nor a quiver of routine skills yields the flexibility to engage the layers of a complex life as they unfold. Junior Versions If “a thinking kind of way” sounds daunting for younger learners, remember that almost any topic can be treated in a junior version, with Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 237 substantive thinking at an appropriate level for the learners in ques- tion. Moreover, younger learners often surprise us by their insights, given half a chance to engage topics thoughtfully. It’s a fundamen- tal mistake to suppose that young children can’t think and so fill the first years of learning with little but facts and routines. Such a practice misses an important opportunity, makes learning boring, and communicates a profoundly demoralizing message about the character of school learning. From Thinking About to Thinking With Conventionally good instruction draws learners into thinking about the topic before them: how diseases work or a Shakespearean sonnet, for example. Such thinking about develops an understanding focused on its object. However, truly lifeready learning demands experience in thinking with—thinking with what you know about how diseases work to, for instance, manage your own health or consider public policy issues; thinking with what you know about a Shakespearean sonnet to look at other sorts of poetry and song and even prose in more enlight- ened ways. Conventionally good instruction commonly does not take this cru- cial step from thinking about to thinking with. How to get it to do so is a crucial part of the conversation. Understanding as Applying One way to characterize the shift from thinking about to thinking with is to say that developed understanding involves applying what’s been learned flexibly in other areas. Understanding as Noticing Applying entails detecting occasions. It’s commonplace to understand something in principle but not make a link to the moment. Inevitably amid the buzz and tumble of experience, potential connections pass us 238 future wise by. Lifeready learning fosters a pervasive alertness about how ideas of today may connect to the occasions of tomorrow. Understanding as Caring For lifeready learning, along with conceptual mastery needs to come some energy and enthusiasm. Good teaching creates an arc of experi- ence that brings content to life, makes it vivid, shows its relevance, and engages learners in confident navigation through some of its intricacies rather than leaving them bewildered. Start the End in the Middle Aspirations like these are on the minds of many teachers and in the plans of many curriculum designers. But often there is a structural problem: thinking with the content gets assigned to the ends of units, in sections called “transfer” or “connection making.” With education’s perpetually busy schedule, such cabooses tend to fall off the end of the train. The shift from thinking about to thinking with needs to occur partway along. Start the end in the middle. Leverage Digital Technologies Many teachers can and do accomplish something like the above in their classrooms without any significant assist from contemporary digital technologies. However, such technologies certainly can help, particularly at scale. Besides affording fresh environments for building understand- ing, they can assist in personalizing learning, allow learners to advance at different paces toward achieving target thresholds of understanding, and offer topics beyond the specific expertise of anyone at the local school. Have Confidence about Standards and Exams When I present these ideas, educators are often enthusiastic and wor- ried at the same time. “If I move in this direction,” they ask, “how will that affect our students’ performance on high-stakes testing?” Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 239 With many educators, I feel that high-stakes testing as currently handled too often distorts education. That said, the track record of schools attempting visionary innovations seems to be quite positive. Despite the worries, such innovations do not generally undermine exam performance. While benefiting from the innovations, the stu- dents often do considerably better on the conventional exams and very rarely do worse. This doesn’t happen automatically. The program in question has to be well designed. However, there is no reason to treat high-stakes testing as a fundamental barrier to more lifeworthy and lifeready learning. We can work within the system and, I hope, eventually change the system. Quest 4: Constructing a Lifeworthy Curriculum Most of us could stop with quest 3. It is not every day that we need to worry about piecing together the many subjects and themes of an entire curriculum. Only from time to time do panels of teachers, state school boards, departments of education, and similar groups tackle this chal- lenge. If I am teaching about the Magna Carta on Tuesday, the Boxer Rebellion on Wednesday, or the Milgram experiment on Thursday to serve learners well in the lives they are likely to live, I want to be attentive to quests 1, 2, and 3, but thankfully I do not need to reconsider the entire course of education. But although most of us do not have to worry about quest 4 most of the time, someone should. Here’s how they might tackle that major task. Bucket Systems First off, let’s recognize how we organize curriculum: we use buckets most typically representing the disciplines: science, mathematics, history, literature (chapter 8). Today’s bucket systems need to be more responsive to our complex world and our complex ways of living in it, leading education from its traditional hierarchical structure toward a network structure. 240 future wise Renewing the Disciplines The familiar disciplines have been the buckets for organizing curric- ulum for a long time, and I’m thinking they remain a viable choice. However, our conversation needs to reach beyond them in their most familiar forms. For the sake of lifeworthy learning, the disciplines need renewing. As we exercise our strategy of smart sampling, we should attend to contemporary developments in the disciplines, the emer- gence of new hybrid disciplines such as behavioral economics, and the coming-into-their-own of disciplines like psychology and sociology, which have much more to say to many facets of life today than they did one hundred or even fifty years ago. Expert Amateurism We might also construct the later years of basic education in the disci- plines for expert amateurism rather than a reach toward expertise, that is, robust flexible understanding of fundamentals that come up over and over in life more than the study of advanced topics that hardly ever come up. Expert amateurism serves very well most of what we do in life outside our professions. Let’s add the qualification that there is some role for such advanced topics in orienting students toward disciplines they might like to pursue more deeply, but not at the cost of robust flexible understanding of the fundamentals. The following table adds some grain to this notion, contrasting conventional learning toward niches of expertise with learning toward expert amateurism: Learning toward Niches of Learning toward Expert Expertise Amateurism Technical advancement privi- Robust flexible use of fundamen- leged over robust flexible use of tals emphasized fundamentals Ways of knowing deferred Ways of knowing engaged early in accessible junior versions Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 241 Learning toward Niches of Learning toward Expert Expertise Amateurism Thinking-about and end- Thinking-with foregrounded, of-chapter-style problem with a rich and wide range solving foregrounded Answers with few questions, Ongoing questions and problem problem solving with finding as strong presences little problem finding Dispositions neglected, leav- Dispositions richly developed ing this to students’ variable proclivities Reframing the Disciplines Beyond renewing the disciplines, we might consider reframing the disci- plines: relabeling and reorganizing them somewhat while keeping them center stage. Drawing on chapter 8, one good example of this comes from the Essentials Schools movement, which celebrates thematic cat- egories such as these: ● Identity and history: Who am I? Who is my family? ● Other people and groups: Who are the other people around me and in other parts of the world? How are they similar to and different from me? ● The psychological world: What is in my mind? Where do my emo- tions come from? ● The biological world: Do animals think? What does it mean to be alive? It’s not hard to relate such themes to familiar disciplines, but the correspondences are not quite one-to-one, and the redescription carries a more provocative and inspirational quality. 242 future wise Crosstopics In a simpler world, one or another structure reflecting the familiar dis- ciplines would do the job, but in today’s world, the conversation needs something more, another kind of bucket system—crosstopics. True to their name, crosstopics range across the typical disci- plines, recognizing problems and themes not well addressed within any one. The causes and cures of poverty, the roots and remedies of violent human conflict, the intricate dance of local and regional civic life, the management of the environment for the well-being of all living things: themes such as these reach beyond any single discipline. They commonly provide a focus for learning in forms such as project-based learning, case-based learning, year-long schoolwide initiatives, or pro- grams of community participation. Themes such as these function as crosstopics. For lifeworthy learning in today’s world, variations on the disci- plines aren’t enough. Their very focus is both a kind of strength and a kind of weakness. The depth of their substance leaves them too siloed in the absence of structures that require bridging their walls. We need crosstopics also. What’s on Top? If we have two sorts of bucket systems in play—variations on the disci- plines and one or another system of crosstopics—what’s on top? What provides the principal organizer, the one defining what courses stu- dents take this year? As explored in chapter 8, it seems to me that there’s no sweeping answer to this. Different structures can serve well enough: some ver- sion of the disciplines on top, some version of crosstopics on top, or grid systems that interlace the two. Trade-offs come with such choices. Disciplines on top keeps the boulevard of education more familiar but risks slighting the side streets of the crosstopics. Crosstopics on top risks backlash from uneasy parents and other groups. Grid systems bal- ance the two but at the cost of complexity. Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 243 Any reasonable system can be made to work with smart attention and any calls for sensitivity to context. Most important is not whether disciplines or crosstopics are king of the hill but that both are in the game. Big Know-How Again We also have the challenge of placing big know-how in the curriculum: twenty-first-century skills and their relatives. Typically this involves weaving in attention to critical and creative thinking, communication skills, entrepreneurship, and similar matters. Big know-how does not lend itself to teaching as a subject nearly as much as it offers opportu- nities for enriching teaching and learning within and across whatever bucket systems provide the principal organizing structure (chapter 9). About College Education I’ve often spoken about lifeworthy learning in public. One of the most common questions from audience members is this: “Wouldn’t most of these ideas apply to college curricula just as well as to precollege?” It’s a good question. It’s also a complicated one because different colleges and universities around the world work in different ways. Some emphasize early professionalization: students decide on their principal area of study in the first year or even during the application process and pursue it in depth from the beginning. Others emphasize a period of general humanistic education. And of course, there are mixes. Ideas about lifeworthy versus niche learning speak most obviously to programs with a strong component of general education. Indeed, such programs, free from the strictures common in precollege educa- tion, often do reach for one or another version of lifeworthy learning. How about early professionalization, though? Is that really a good idea? I do worry that it forces premature choices and restricts contin- uing attention to broader lifeworthy matters that would serve college learners well. But that’s just my opinion, and we need to respect both the diverse approaches around the world and the variable readiness 244 future wise among individuals to take the deep professional dive. Accordingly, I see the ideas in this book applying most straightforwardly to precollege education, although they carry potential relevance wherever learning occurs. Acknowledging the Agendas of Achievement, Information, and Expertise As we construct a curriculum, our conversation also needs to recog- nize that a focus on big understandings and questions has its limits. There are other learning agendas, especially the agendas of achieve- ment, information, and expertise emphasized in chapter 2. Although these agendas tend to clog our educational bandwidth, they are not forces of evil. Each of them makes a certain contribution to lifeworthy learning. Education in many settings suffers from an overwhelming empha- sis on the achievement gap. But let’s be fair: achievement in basic areas of literacy and numeracy certainly is tremendously important to the lives learners are likely to live; that has never been in question in these pages. The Internet may put information at our fingertips, but that still falls well short of the fluent information retrieval our minds do for us as we read a blog or a newspaper or follow a conversation or sim- ply stroll down the street making sense of what we see. A considera- ble fund of remembered information is still tremendously important. The tendency to hustle able students along toward the more technical aspects of the disciplines may tend to flood them with not-so-useful niche understandings and questions, but students are also searching for disciplines, professions, and practices that might figure centrally in their lives. Some opportunity to sample technically advanced topics has its importance. In sum, while our conversation toward a lifeworthy curriculum should foreground big understandings and questions, the best big bets we can make for the lives learners are likely to live, the choices we make have to find some reasonable balance with the agendas of achievement, information, and expertise. Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 245 Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom So with the full tool kit in view, let’s turn back to wisdom. What does lifeworthy learning have to do with wisdom? The richest sort of lifeworthy learning edges close to wisdom. Recall how lifeworthy learning generally brings the four-way benefit of insight, action, ethics, and opportunity. Remember how the four benefits shine through clearly in the story of Gandhi’s sandal. In a moment of oppor- tunity, he had insight into the circumstances of poor people’s lives, and took action by tossing the other sandal, a gesture of ethical commitment. Certainly most lifeworthy learning is not going to live up to the exam- ple of Gandhi’s sandal, but lifeworthy learning in general seems to be moving in the right direction—knowledge on the way to wisdom. I can just hear the critics! Wisdom? Really? When kids can’t spell? When kids don’t know the capital of Georgia (either the state of the United States or the nation; your choice). When kids can’t find Iraq on a map? I admit that wisdom is a presumptuous goal for education, even university education, never mind preuniversity. But surely if wisdom is too lofty, naming the capital of either one of the two Georgias is too lowly. Let’s put it this way: Maybe a reasonable aspiration for education, even preuniversity education, is not so much wisdom but knowledge on the way to wisdom. Examples in that spirit have been on the table throughout this book. Remember the fellow who found deep value from understanding the French Revolution? It wasn’t so much the names, dates, and his- torical events that proved important to him, but the general sense of how societies work, the drivers of poverty and resentment, the place of political power. The French Revolution provided the learner with a lens through which to look at many times and places and fed a pattern of social concern and commitment. Is that wisdom? Maybe, maybe not. Surely one would have to know the learner a lot better to say. But is it knowledge on the way to wisdom, knowledge stepping beyond mere knowledge to a panoramic under- standing that offers much more? Surely at least that! 246 future wise Knowledge on the way to wisdom gets some momentum from a three-way contrast that for decades has figured in writing about organ- izations: information-knowledge-wisdom. The general idea is simple enough. When we think about what people know and what they make of it in our complicated world, it’s good to sort out different kinds of knowing to get our priorities straight. People can have information— what you get from phone books and almanacs for instance—and find it very useful for certain purposes. People can have knowledge and know-how—how our government works, what’s strong about a con- temporary artist’s work, how to program a computer or organize a meeting—and find it very useful as well and a step beyond information. But beyond knowledge, there’s something else. From our ideal phy- sician or priest or political leader, we’d like the wisdom of the broad view, sensitive balancing of factors, commitment to the well-being of those involved, the decision that breaks through narrow prejudices and shortsighted plans. As to teaching, if wisdom is a bridge too far, neither do we need to be so stuck in place as to settle just for information or even just for knowledge. At least we can hope to teach for knowledge on the way to wisdom. With the W word getting so much exercise here, what is wisdom anyhow? Some help comes from a good deal of philosophical and psychological work on the nature of wisdom over the past several decades. One prominent school of thought from Germany explains that wisdom has to do with expertise in the basic pragmatics of life. The life span developmentalist Paul Baltes and colleagues have argued that when we speak of wise judgments or actions, we mean ones that reflect a deep appreciation of the way the human world works. Remember the story of Gandhi’s sandal. In that moment of stepping onto the train, his gesture showed an appreciation for the very different lives people live. Psychologist Robert Sternberg writes of a “balance” theory of wisdom, with wise judgment involving the capability and disposition to balance a range of factors that bear on a situation. Cautious of sweepingly characterizing people as wise, Guy Claxton zooms in on wise actions. Whether a person is generally wise Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 247 is a much tougher question than whether a particular action on a particular occasion is wise. Certainly there are symptoms generally associated with wise actions, and certainly one can try to cultivate perspectives and mind-sets that feed into wise actions, for instance, looking at situations broadly, with compassion but a certain detach- ment; setting aside one’s own agendas; embracing complexity; taking multiple perspectives. Just as people might be more or less wise generally, they can be more or less wise in particular areas, say, chess playing or mountain climbing. I asked Jonathan Rowson, a grand master chess player I know, whether it made any sense to speak of being wise about chess. Rowson said yes. Wisdom about chess has to do not just with technical excellence but with understanding oneself and one’s opponent and the conditions of tournament play. It involves artful self-management. For instance, seeking the best move is not always your best choice. Choices need to be made with the chess clock in mind. Maybe a better move is out there, but one not worth searching for, depending on your position and how much time is left. Likewise, being wise about mountain climbing would have to do not just with technical skill but also with good judgment about what risks to take and not, what partners to climb with and not. In other words, it’s one thing to be technically smart about something like chess or mountain climbing, but something beyond that to be wise about it. Ideas like these help us to get the big W in focus. But we shouldn’t think they nail wisdom down. As Claxton points out, the idea of wis- dom is elusive, differing somewhat across people and cultures. The trouble is, wisdom is a folk concept defined by our general social sense of usage more than by dictionaries or philosophers. And so are knowl- edge and data. Although we can speak loosely of the progression from information to knowledge to wisdom, and although we can give exam- ples that most people would acknowledge as information or knowledge or wisdom, it’s hard to spell out criteria that make those distinctions categorical. There are big fuzzy borders in between. If you want to get analytical about it, information-knowledge-wisdom is a mess as a cate- gory system. 248 future wise But don’t think of the trio as categories. Think of the trio as a com- pass, conveying a loose sense of direction and progression. Conventional education keeps its center of gravity somewhere around information-knowledge and not so much around knowl- edge-wisdom. Imagine just the opposite. Imagine if the center of gravity of education fell more toward the further end of knowledge-wisdom, more toward knowledge on the way to wisdom. That would be lifewor- thy indeed! Two Blind Men Crossing a Log At the beginning of this book, I made a peculiar promise. Although addressing the question, “What’s worth learning?” I promised not to answer it. I hope I have lived up to that promise. I hope that what we all find in these pages is not 10 commandments or 100 commandments or 1,000 commandments declaring what’s worth learning, but rather better ways of thinking about what’s worth learning. There are at least two reasons for hanging back from the 10 or 100 or 1,000 commandments. First, rather good answers to “What’s worth learning?” are bound to be continuously under construction as we range across learners and settings. An eternally anointed curriculum makes no sense for a future wise education, although certainly well- made choices for particular learners and settings can be expected to last for a while with only editorial attention. But second, the quest to answer “What’s worth learning?” for one- self and others in one’s neighborhood is intrinsically educative for the educators themselves, intrinsically a part of the commitment and the mission, intrinsically an endeavor of educators’ knowledge on the way to wisdom. This opportunity for educators to deepen their understand- ing is not something that any of us should ever want to take away in obeisance to the false god of final answers. That is why it’s a particular pleasure to conclude by mentioning a Zen ink painting from Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768), a Zen monk of the Japanese Edo period who wrote and painted prolifically and with great Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom 249 influence. The painting is readily available online. Just do a Google search by name: Two Blind Men Crossing a Log Bridge. Looking at the painting, you see a sweep of ink from right to left representing a log crossing a huge chasm with no bottom in sight. Two blind men creep out on the log from the right side, feeling their way with canes. I’m no expert on Zen, but my sense is that the painting sig- nifies the precarious and uncertain quest for enlightenment. What to think or feel or do cannot be rendered in words. There is no reliable road map. One has to feel one’s way. It’s enticing for educators to take the venture of the two blind men in another way, as a metaphor for the fundamental dilemma of educating for the unknown. We have little prescience about where the world is going and even less about where particular students in particular con- texts might be going. We are, like the blind men on the log, groping our way forward. That admitted, what is especially striking about the two blind men is that they are not groping dumb; they are groping smart. They are not strolling boldly along where they think the log might be. If they did, they would almost surely fall off in a few steps. They are feeling their way intelligently with their canes, probing, testing, getting a sense of shape and direction. Today much of education seems to be groping dumb, strolling boldly along the log in the same direction as before with relatively lit- tle sense of where the log actually is. Let’s confess that we don’t know exactly where the log is. “What’s worth learning?” is an impossible question if we want the perfect answer. We are indeed educating for the unknown. But with some thoughtful criteria and a sense of mis- sion, we can grope smart. n o t e s Chapter 1: Lifeworthy Learning Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: Macmillan. Retrieved from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER2/Dewey /header.html Big history: Christian, D. (2004). Maps of time: An introduction to big history. Berkeley: University of California Press. Carretero, M. (2011). Constructing patriotism: Teaching history and memories in global worlds. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Clash of civilizations: Huntington, S. (1993). The clash of civilizations. Foreign Affairs, 72(3), 22–28. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of the world order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Thriving in today’s society requires effective communications, collaboration, and problem-solving skills: Levy, F., & Murnane R. (2004). The new division of labor: How computers are creating the new job market. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Murnane, R. J., & Levy, F. (1996). Teaching the new basic skills: Principles for educating children to thrive in a changing economy. New York: Free Press. Chapter 2: Learning Agendas Darling-Hammond, L. (2009). The flat world in education: How America’s commitment to equity will determine our future. New York: Teachers College Press. Explaining the dominant influence of Eurasian civilization: Diamond, J. M. (1999). Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies. New York: Norton. 251 252 notes Cultural literacy: Hirsch, E. D. (1987). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Hirsch, E. D., Kett, J. F., & Trefil, J. S. (2002). The new dictionary of cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. On the expertise agenda: Thornton, S. J. (2005). Incorporating internationalism into the social studies curriculum. In N. Noddings (Ed.), Educating citizens for global awareness (pp. 81–92). New York: Teachers College Press. Chapter 3: Big Understandings Big understandings ancestor: Readers familiar with my Making Learning Whole may note that the book discusses what’s worth learning under the label “understandings of wide scope,” especially in chapter 3. Big understandings means the same thing. I changed the vocabulary for what seemed to me greater accessibility. Democratic nations tend not to go to war with one another: Ray, J. L. (2000). On the level(s), does democracy correlate with peace? In J. A. Vasquez (Ed.), What do we know about war? (pp. 299–316). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. P21, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/ The European Union framework of key competences: Key competences for lifeline learning: European reference framework (2006). Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/dgs /education_culture/publ/pdf/ll-learning/keycomp_en.pdf Gardner, H. (2006). Five minds for the future. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York: Basic Books. Postman, N. (1995). The end of education: Redefining the value of school. New York: Knopf. Themes from Iowa social studies curriculum: Iowa Core K–12 social studies: Essential concepts and skills with details and examples. Retrieved from http://www.educateiowa.gov/index .php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=12200&Itemid=4303 Threshold concepts: Meyer, J.H.F., & Land, R. (2006). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: An introduction. In J.H.F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 3–18). London: Routledge. Collections on threshold concepts: Immediately above plus . . . Land, R., Meyer J H.F., & Smith J. (Eds.). (2008). Threshold concepts within the disciplines. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Meyer, J.H.F., Land, R., & Baillie, C. (Eds.). (2010). Threshold concepts and transformational learning. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Preparation for future learning: Bransford, J. D., & Schwartz, D. L. (1999). Rethinking transfer: A simple proposal with interesting implications. In A. Iran-Nejad & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Review of research in education (Vol. 24, pp. 61–101). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Scheffler, I. (2009). Worlds of truth: A philosophy of knowledge. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Notes 253 Chapter 4: Big Questions Diamond, J. M. (1999). Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies. New York: Norton. Quote from Isidor Rabi: Retrieved from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isidor_Isaac_Rabi Logging and classifying questions in conventional and thinking-oriented classrooms: Ron Ritchhart, personal communication, August 29, 2013. See also chapter 2 of Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. School children generating questions about a topic: Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1992). Text-based and knowledge-based questioning by children. Cognition and Instruction, 9, 177–199. Source for the Meno: Project Gutenberg EBook of Meno, by Plato, translator Benjamin Jowett. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1643/1643-h/1643-h.htm. The text is not paginated; the quote, easily searched for, appears a little more than halfway through. The Philosophy for Children approach: Lipman, M., Sharp, A. M., & Oscanyan, F. (1980). Philosophy in the classroom. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy goes to school. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Live and dead hypotheses: James, W. (1896). The will to believe: An address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities. Retrieved from http://educ .jmu.edu//~omearawm/ph101willtobelieve.html Throughlines from the teaching for understanding model: Wiske, M. S. (1998). What is teaching for understanding? In M. S. Wiske (Ed.), Teaching for understanding: Linking research with practice (pp. 61–86). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. On essential questions: http://www.essentialschools.org/benchmarks/8 Example of a set of essential questions from Central Park East. Retrieved from http://www .essentialschools.org/resources/122#figure1 Example from a botany unit: Retrieved from http://www.essentialschools.org/resources /122#figure2 Fertile questions: Harpaz, Y. (2013). Teaching and learning in a community of thinking: The third model. New York: Springer. Examples from page 98 of Harpaz. Rothstein, D., & Santana, L. (2011). Make just one change: Teach students to ask their own questions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. What’s going on here/what do you see that makes you say that: Housen, A., Yenawine, P., & Arenas, A. (1991). Visual thinking curriculum. Unpublished but used for research purposes, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Housen, A. (1996). Studies on aesthetic development. Minneapolis: American Association of Museums Sourcebook. Visible thinking program: Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. N. (2008). Making thinking visible. Educational Leadership, 65(5), 57–61. 254 notes Perkins, D. N., & Ritchhart, R. (2004). When is good thinking? In D. Y. Dai & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Motivation, emotion, and cognition: Integrative perspectives on intellectual functioning and development (pp. 351–384). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. General resource on visible thinking: Retrieved from http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org /VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html Artful thinking, a variant of visible thinking emphasizing arts integration, developed by Shari Tishman and Patricia Palmer: Retrieved from http://www.pzartfulthinking.org /index.php Cultures of thinking emphasis of Visible Thinking: Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Swartz, R. J., Costa, A. L., Beyer, B. K., Regan, R., & Kallick, B. (2007). Thinking-based learning: Activating students’ potential. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon. The decision-making example comes from chapter 4 of Swartz et al. What if not?—a key question: Brown, S. I. (2001). Reconstructing school mathematics: problems with problems and the real world. New York: Peter Lang. See also Brown, S. I., & Walter, M. I. (1983). T he art of problem posing. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Chapter 5: Lifeready Learning The folly of thinking in some historical moments: Tuchman, B. (1984). The march of folly. New York: Knopf. Seven principles of learning: Perkins, D. N. (2009). Making learning whole: How seven principles of teaching can transform education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Investigation of teaching and learning for understanding: Wiske, M. S. (Ed.). (1998). Teaching for understanding: Linking research with practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools should teach. New York: Basic Books. Grotzer, T. A. (2012). Learning causality in a complex world: Understandings of consequence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Troublesome knowledge: Perkins (2009), chap. 3. Perkins, D. N. (2006). Constructivism and troublesome knowledge. In J.H.F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 33–47). London: Routledge. Teachers’ guide for teaching for understanding: Blythe, T., & Associates. (1998). The teaching for understanding guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Junior versions: Perkins (2009), Introduction and chap. 1. G. W. Bush’s speech to war veterans: Bush, G. W. (2007, August 22). Speech to war veterans, Kansas City, MO. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22 /washington/w23policytext.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Inert knowledge: Whitehead, A. N. (1929). The aims of education and other essays. New York: Simon & Schuster. Notes 255 Bransford, J. D., Franks, J. J., Vye, N. J., & Sherwood, R. D. (1989). New approaches to instruction: Because wisdom can’t be told. In S. Vosniadou & A. Ortony (Eds.), Similarity and analogical reasoning (pp. 470–497). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Our studies of thinking dispositions: Perkins, D. N., Jay, E., & Tishman, S. (1993). Beyond abilities: A dispositional theory of thinking. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 39(1), 1–21. Perkins, D. N., Tishman, S., Ritchhart, R., Donis, K., & Andrade, A. (2000). Intelligence in the wild: A dispositional view of intellectual traits. Educational Psychology Review, 12(3), 269–293. Perkins, D. N., & Tishman, S. (2001). Dispositional aspects of intelligence. In S. Messick & J. M. Collis (Eds.), Intelligence and personality: Bridging the gap in theory and measurement (pp. 233–257). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Perkins, D. N., & Ritchhart, R. (2004). When is good thinking? In D. Y. Dai & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Motivation, emotion, and cognition: Integrative perspectives on intellectual functioning and development (pp. 351–384). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. N. (2000). Life in the mindful classroom: Nurturing the disposition of mindfulness. Journal of Social Issues, 56(1), 27–47. Tishman, S., Jay, E., & Perkins, D. N. (1993). Thinking dispositions: From transmission to enculturation. Theory into Practice, 32(3), 147–153. Ritchhart, R. (2002). Intellectual character: What it is, why it matters, and how to get it. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ritchhart, R., & Perkins, D. N. (2005). Learning to think: The challenges of teaching thinking. In K. Holyoak & R. Morrison (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 775–802). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The disposition to understand for yourself: Entwistle, N. J., & McCune, V. (2009). The disposition to understand for oneself at university and beyond: Learning processes, the will to learn and sensitivity to context. In L.-F. Zang & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Perspectives on the nature of intellectual styles (pp. 29–62). New York: Springer. See also: Entwistle, N. J. (2009). Teaching for understanding at university: Deep approaches and distinctive ways of thinking. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. High road and low road transfer: Salomon, G., & Perkins, D. N. (1989). Rocky roads to transfer: Rethinking mechanisms of a neglected phenomenon. Educational Psychologist, 24(2), 113–142. The dispositional side of transfer: Perkins, D. N., & Salomon, G. (2012). Knowledge to go: A motivational and dispositional view of transfer. Educational Psychologist, 47(3), 248–258. Bounded versus expansive framing: Engle, R. A., Lam, D. P., Meyer, X. S., & Nix, S. E. How does expansive framing promote transfer? Several proposed questions and a research agenda for investigating them. Educational Psychologist, 47(3), 215–231. Transforming American education: Learning powered by technology (2010). Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. The EcoMUVE project: http://ecomuve.gse.harvard.edu/index.html Reigeluth, C. M., & Karnopp, J. R. (2013). Reinventing schools: It’s time to break the mold. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 256 notes Chapter 6: The Seven Seas of Knowledge Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. New York: Oxford University Press. Cultural contrasts in cognition: Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought. New York: Free Press. Paradigms of scientific inquiry: Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. The ignorance map: From the PDF document Questions, questioning, and questioners. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona College of Medicine. Retrieved from http:// www.ignorance.medicine.arizona.edu/pdfs/SIMIBRO3.PDF Putnam, R. D. (2007). E pluribus unum: Diversity and community in the twenty-first century: The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(2), 137–174. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467–9477 .2007.00176.x/full Bruner quote: Bruner, J. S. (1973). Readiness for learning. In J. Anglin (Ed.), Beyond the information given (pp. 413–425). Chapter 7: Ways of Knowing Epistemic games: Perkins, D. N. (1994). The hidden order of open-ended thinking. In J. Edwards (Ed.), Thinking: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Victoria, Australia: Hawker Brownlow Education. Perkins, D. N. (1997). Epistemic games. International Journal of Educational Research, 27(1), 49–61. Epistemes (same concept): Perkins, D. N. (2006). Constructivism and troublesome knowledge. In J.H.F. Meyer & R. Land (Eds.), Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (pp. 33–47). London: Routledge. Ways of thinking and practicing: Entwistle, N. (2009). Teaching for understanding at university: Deep approaches and distinctive ways of thinking. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Epistemic forms and games: Collins, A., & Ferguson, W. (1993). Epistemic forms and epistemic games: Structures and strategies to guide inquiry. Educational Psychologist, 28(1), 25–42. Computer games as cultivating epistemic understanding: Shaffer, D. W. (2007). How computer games help children learn. New York: Palgrave. Boix Mansilla, V., & Gardner, H. (1998). What are the qualities of understanding? In M. S. Wiske (Ed.), Teaching for understanding: Linking research with practice (pp. 161–196). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. McConachie, S. M., & Petrosky, A. R. (Eds.). Content matters: A disciplinary literacy approach to improving student learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Snow, C. P. (2001) [1959]. The two cultures. London: Cambridge University Press. A gestalt perspective: Wertheimer, M. (1945). Productive thinking. New York: Harper. Notes 257 Geometry students’ fragile grasp of the mathematical way of knowing: Chazen, D. (1989). Ways of knowing: High school students’ conceptions of mathematical proof. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA. Popper, K. R. (2002) [1959]. The logic of scientific discovery. London: Routledge. The Geometric Supposer: Schwartz, J. L., Yerushalmy, M., & Wilson, B. (Eds.). (1993). The Geometric Supposer: What is it a case of? Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Tricky aspects of literary interpretation: Richards, I. A. (1929). Practical criticism: A study of literary judgment. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Bennett, P. (1970). What happened at Lexington Green? Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley. Holt, T. (1990). Thinking historically: Narrative, imagination, and understanding. New York: College Entrance Examination Board. Chapter 8: Buckets of Knowledge Postman, N. (1995). The end of education: redefining the value of school. New York: Knopf. For information on Common Core: http://www.corestandards.org/ Jacobs, H. H. (2010). Upgrading content: Provocation, invigoration, and replacement. In H. H. Jacobs (Ed.), Curriculum 21: Essential education for a changing world (pp. 30–59). Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Wiggins, G. (2011). A diploma worth having. Educational Leadership, 68(6), 28–33. Big history: Christian, D. (2004). Maps of time: An introduction to big history. Berkeley: University of California Press. On behavioral economics: Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. For greater emphasis on behavior and decisions: Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: MacMillan. Essential question categories from the Technology Learning Consortium: http://www .techforlearning.org/essquest.html The Harvard College Program in General Education: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs /icb.topic830823.files/Report%20of%20the%20Taskforce%20on%20General%20 Education.pdf Gardner, H. (2000). The disciplined mind: Beyond facts and standardized tests, the K–12 education that every child deserves. New York: Penguin Books. Gardner’s response to critiques: Gardner, H. (2011). Truth, beauty, and goodness reframed: Educating for the virtues in the twenty-first century. New York: Basic Books. Facing History and Ourselves: http://www.facing.org/ Salomon, G., & Cairns, E. (2009). Handbook on peace education. New York: Psychology Press. Salomon, G. (2004). Does peace education make a difference in the context of an intractable conflict? Peace and conflict. Journal of Peace Psychology, 10, 257–274. Pinker, S. (2011). The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined. New York: Viking. 258 notes Global competence: Boix Mansilla, V., & Jackson, A. (2011). Educating for global competence: Preparing our youth to engage the world. New York: The Asia Society. Expeditionary Learning website: http://elschools.org/ Core practices document: Expeditionary learning core practices: A vision for improving schools. http://elschools.org/sites/default/files/Core%20Practice%20Final_EL_120811 .pdf Berger, R. (2003). An ethic of excellence: Building a culture of craftsmanship with students. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Framework from the Common Ground Collaborative: http://www.thecgcproject.org /uploaded/photos/CGC_Adv_Board/CGC_Docs/CGC-Dec-2013-V1.pdf Victorian Essential Learning Standards: http://ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Overview /Strands-Domains-and-Dimensions The Quest to Learn School courses/themes: http://q2l.org/academics-3 Chapter 9: Big Know-How Learning structure from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills: http://www.p21.org/overview The European Union framework of key competences: Key competences for lifeline learning: European reference framework (2006): http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture /publ/pdf/ll-learning/keycomp_en.pdf Seven survival skills: Wagner, T. (2008). The global achievement gap: Why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need—and what we can do about it. New York: Basic Books. Habits of mind: Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (2009). Habits of mind across the curriculum: Practical and creative strategies for teachers. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Studio habits of mind: Hetland, L., Winner, W., Veenema, S., & Sheridan, K. (2007). Studio thinking: The real benefits of arts education. New York: Teachers College Press. Howard Gardner’s five minds framework: Gardner, H. (2006). Five minds for the future. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. On the infusion versus the stand-alone approach: Swartz, R. J. (1987). Teaching for thinking: A developmental model for the infusion of thinking skills into mainstream instruction. In J. B. Baron & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Teaching thinking skills: Theory and practice (pp. 106–126). New York: W. H. Freeman. Also: Swartz, R. J., & Perkins, D. N. (1989). Teaching thinking: Issues and approaches. Pacific Grove, CA: Midwest Publications. Also: Perkins, D. N. (1995). Outsmarting IQ: The emerging science of learnable intelligence. New York: Free Press. Swartz, R. J., Costa, A. L., Beyer, B. K., Regan, R., & Kallick, B. (2007). Thinking-based learning: Activating students’ potential. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon. Tishman, S., Perkins, D. N., & Jay, E. (1995). The thinking classroom. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Notes 259 Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Complex causality: Grotzer, T. A. (2012). Learning causality in a complex world: Understandings of consequence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. How learners can manage their learning better: Perkins, D. N. (2009). Making learning whole: How seven principles of teaching can transform education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chapter 10: Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom The story of Gandhi’s second sandal: Numerous sites on the Web repeat this story. However, I have not been able to find anything like an authoritative source. It could be apocryphal. Apocryphal or not, it seems in keeping with Gandhi’s character, certainly could have happened, and illustrates acting in a wise way in the moment, which in this context is the main point. A Wikipedia article that offers a good account of the information-knowledge-wisdom trio and similar contrasts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIKW_Pyramid Baltes and colleagues on the nature of wisdom: Baltes, P., & Kunzmann, U. (2004). The two faces of wisdom: Wisdom as a general theory of knowledge and judgment about excellence in mind and virtue vs. wisdom as everyday realization in people and products. Human Development, 47, 290–299. Baltes, P., & Smith, J. (1990). Toward a psychology of wisdom and its ontogenesis. In R. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom, its nature, origins and development (pp. 87–120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baltes, P., & Staudinger, U. (2000). Wisdom: A metaheuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue toward excellence. American Psychologist, 55, 122–136. Sternberg on wisdom: Sternberg, R. J. (1998). A balance theory of wisdom. Review of General Psychology, 2, 347–365. Claxton on wisdom: Claxton, G. (2008) Wisdom: Advanced creativity? In A. Craft, H. Gardner, & G. Claxton (Eds.), Creativity, wisdom, and trusteeship: Exploring the role of education (pp. 35–48). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. i n d e x A American War of Independence. See Accountancy, 161 Revolutionary War Achievement agenda, 24, 28–31, 39, 42, 43, 46, “Among School Children” (Yeats), 137 47, 58, 224, 226, 244 Analogies, reaching for, 104–105, 108, 110, 165 Achievement gap, focus on the, 28–29, 30, 31, Analysis, 115, 166 34, 244 Analytical questions, 77 Achievement standards, common, creating, Answers: focus on, moving beyond a, 94; 175–176 organizing curriculum around big ideas Acquaintance knowledge, 16, 21, 32, 33, 34, versus, 84; question of, 92–93. See also Big 45, 56, 60, 135, 169, 231 understandings Action, 3; and big know-how, 200, 221; and big Anthropology, 67, 86, 147, 183 questions, 74, 87, 94; big understandings Aphorisms, 105, 106 and, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 62, 68, 92, 110, 224, Applications, inclusion of, 116–117, 121, 230; from the disciplines, 130, 131, 172, 130, 150 178; and lifeready learning, 107–108, 109, Applying, 173; discussion of ways of, 110, 115, 120, 236; and ways of knowing, including, 167; involving experience with, 144; and wisdom, 224, 245; wise, 246, 247 112, 115, 116, 117; lack of developing, Active know-how, building, time involved in, 112–113; understanding as, 103–105, 215–216 119, 121, 237; ways of, 149, 150, 153, 156, Advanced Placement courses, 37 165, 169 Aesthetics, 131, 138–139, 181 Argument, 44, 89, 93, 108, 114, 115, 133, 133– Algebra, 12–13, 37, 128–130, 159, 161, 170. See 134, 146, 147, 149, 150, 153. See also Debate also Quadratic equations Arithmetic, 36, 37, 99, 128, 129, 161. See also Alignment, 173 Basic skills Alphabet, 131 Artistic thinking, 144 Amateurism, expert, 38, 39, 43, 47, 52, 119, Arts, 12, 16, 18, 24, 39, 44, 45, 91, 101, 123, 176, 180, 240–241 126, 131, 138, 147, 175, 181, 187, 190, 192, “American Experiment” narrative, 188 198, 212 American Heritage dictionary, 35–36 Associated knowledge, 59 American Revolution, 162–163, 209 Attainment-based system, call for, 120 261 262 index Attitude, 175, 199, 202, 204, 205, 209, 221. See narratives, 172; and history, 165, 166, 167; also Disposition judging what are, 230–231; and learning Auden, W. H., 127 agendas, 244; and learning expeditions, Automatic transfer, 112 185; and lifeready learning, 99, 111; as living questions, 83–87; overview of, 71–72; B payoffs from, 229; principal point of, 86–87; Bacon, Francis, 154 and the question of answers, 92–93; renewed Bacon’s way of knowing, 154–156, 158, 159, disciplines delivering, 179; sacrificing some 161, 162, 163 number of, need for, 220; and the Socratic Baltes, Paul, 246 approach, 79–82, 83, 93, 95; summary Bansai, Kiran, 139 points on, 94–95; universal, 88–92, 95; ways Basic Machines, 131 of knowing constituting, 144, 150, 161; Basic skills: early years’ focus on, 36; job wondering fostered by, 75–79, 83, 85, 94; market requiring educating beyond, 22, 199; wrongheaded supposition about, 125 lifeworthy, 11; teaching beyond, 2, 3, 28, Big save, 64–65 173, 226 Big understandings, 24; analogy to, 207; big Beautiful, the, as an organizing theme, know-how in contrast with, 200; and big 181–182 questions, 93, 94; and bucket systems, 192, Behavioral economics, 178, 225 194; choosing, 62–63, 220, 234; content- Being, Space and Place, as a theme, 190 centered, with no room to breathe, 168; Bennett, Peter, 162, 163 and contrasting tool kits, 148; defined, Bereiter, Carl, 79 52–55, 110, 230; and digital technologies, Berger, Ron, 184 118; and the disciplines, 124, 129, 130, Better Angels of Our Nature, The (Pinkner), 183 137, 138; diversity of, 55, 56–58; exemplars Beyer, Barry, 89, 209 as, nature of, 127; found in poetry, 126; Bialik College, 139, 160 and grand narratives, 172; judging what Bicycle metaphor, 27, 29, 30, 34, 37, 50, 72, are, 230–231; and learning agendas, 244; 79, 110 and learning expeditions, 185; lifeworthy Big buckets. See Disciplines contribution of, 58–62; opposite of, 56; Big choice, 62–63 overview of, 49–52; payoffs from, 229; and Big history, 177, 225 the question of answers, 92, 93; renewed Big ideas, organizing curriculum around, 84 disciplines delivering, 179; sacrificing Big know-how: accommodating, 214–216; some number of, need for, 220; and saving choosing, 216–219, 220, 232–234; in iconic topics, 64–65; as sense-making contrast with big understandings and kits, 105; summary points on, 68–69; questions, 200; critics of, 219–220; defined, superabundance of, approach to handling, 199–200; and digital technologies, 118; 65–68, 179, 216–217, 233; ways of knowing and the elephant in the room, 214, 215, constituting, 144, 150, 161, 169; and what 216, 220; and the inverted curriculum, makes them lifeready, 99–111; and wisdom, addressing, 219–220; listing, frameworks 224; wrongheaded supposition about, 125; for, 201–207, 213; mapping, 211–214; and younger learners, 138 overview of, 197–200; summary points on, Bioethics, 3 221–222; teaching, 208–210, 222, 243. See Biology, 43–44, 45, 56, 65, 67, 86, 123, 131– also Twenty-first-century skills 132, 176, 181, 185–186, 209, 225 Big questions, 24; analogy to, 207; big Biosphere, lifeworthy topics around the, 20 know-how in contrast with, 200; and big Blythe, Tina, 102 understandings, 93, 94; and bucket systems, Botany unit, essential questions in a, 85 192, 194; content-centered, with no room Boundaries, pushing the, of what’s taught, to breathe, 168; and contrasting tool trends in, 2–3. See also Six beyonds kits, 148; defined, 72–75, 230; and digital Bounded framing, 112 technologies, 118; and the disciplines, Boxer Uprising, 7 124, 130, 138, 139; found in poetry, 126; Brainstorming, 87, 89 good buckets and need for, 194; and grand Bransford, John, 61, 107 Index 263 Brown, Stephen, 91, 158 Claxton, Guy, 246, 247 Bruner, Jerome, 141 Climate change, 11, 12, 18, 24, 50 Bucket systems: and the bucket problem, Close encounters, 17–18 172–174; call for new, overview of, 171–172; Close Encounters of the Third Kind (film), 17 contribution of reasonable, 173; crosstopics Coaching, 3, 215 as, 188–192, 193, 195, 242, 243; principles Coalition of Essential Schools, 84 for better, 192–193, 243; and reframing Code of Hammurabi, 133 the disciplines, 180–182, 192, 194; and Codeworlds, as a theme, 190 renewing the disciplines, 175–180, 192, 193, Coercive Leadership, 131 194; structural trade-offs involving, 193, Coherence, concern with, 149, 234 195, 242; summary points on, 194–195; Collaboration, 3, 22, 23, 174, 199, 202, 203. See and supplementing/complementing with also Twenty-first-century skills crosstopics, 182–187, 188, 189, 193, 195, Collective knowledge and understanding, 94 242; suppositions about good, addressing, Collective learning, 9, 18 174, 194; typical, 124, 172, 239. See also College education, addressing, 243–244 Disciplines College of Medicine, 136 Buddhism, 137 Collins, Alan, 148 Bush, George W., 104, 105 Common Core, 175–176 Byways and highways of knowing, 166–169 Common Ground Collaborative, 189 Common sense, 167 C Communication skills, 22; building, time Caesar, 131 involved in, 215–216; and the Four Cs, Cairns, Edward, 183 202, 203; importance of, 23; priority of, list Calculus, 36, 37, 129 ranking, 198. See also Twenty-first-century Capabilities, 23, 134, 175, 201. See also Basic skills skills; Twenty-first-century skills Communications, contemporary, influence of, Caring: involving experience with, 112, 21–22, 40 115, 117; lack of developing, 113, 116; Community of thinking paradigm, 85, 86 understanding as, 109–111, 115, 116, 119, Complex causal thinking, 211–212 121, 238 Complex challenge, inclusion of a, 117 Carretero, Mario, 19 Complex knowledge, learning and Case-based learning, 117, 242 formulating, 148 “Casey at the Bat” (Thayer), 140, 160 Complex teaching-learning process Catastrophic Leadership, 131 architecture, 116 Causal reasoning, 101 Computational technology, contemporary, Causal thinking, complex, 211–212 influence of, 40 Causal versus descriptive geography, 30–31, 34 Computer use, 119 Central Park East Secondary School, 84 Conceptually difficult knowledge, 101 Change, pace of, 21 Conjecture, 152, 158, 159, 160, 162, 167, 170 Changing world, aspects of a, 21–23, 40 Connectivity trend, 40 Charismatic Leadership, 131 Conqueror, 131 Chazen, Daniel, 153–154, 157 Consistency, concern with, 149 Chemistry, 123, 132, 133, 176 Conspiracy theories, 106 Choice: big, 62–63; bringing trade-offs, 65, Constructing Patriotism (Carretero), 19 220, 242; pattern for, adopting a, 66, 218; Constructivist approaches, 103 problem of more, addressing, 66, 179; Content: prescribed, teaching beyond, 3, 28, providing more, 3, 28, 115, 173, 235. See also 226; questions as method and, 75, 82, 95; Smart sampling as tool, 105; weaving big know-how into Christian, David, 8, 9, 177 teaching, 208–210. See also Basic skills; Church, Mark, 89, 209 Crosstopics; Disciplines; Knowledge; Civic action, emphasis on, 176 Twenty-first-century skills Civic participation, teaching for, 210 Content mastery: concern for, 30; teaching Classroom culture, 209 beyond, 3, 28, 226. See also Expertise agenda 264 index Content Matters (McConachie & Petrosky), 148 239–244; moving through the, pressures of, Content organization, 24, 123. See also Bucket 210; in a network structure, 41–42, 46–47; systems; Curriculum organizing, around big ideas versus answers, Context: big understandings and, 55; life’s 84; and quadratic equations, 12, 13, 15, 16; real-world, inclusion of, 3, 28, 42, 47, 173; recalibrated, 220; scope of, 8; thin presence school, consideration of, in choosing big of big questions in the, 73–74; typical, 9–10, know-how, 217–218; sensitivity to, 243 31, 84, 162, 207. See also Bucket systems; Controversy, 19–20, 235–236 Multiyear curricula Core subjects, 202 Curriculum 21 (Jacobs), 176, 183–184 Costa, Art, 89, 205, 209 Czar, 131 Counterevidence, 156, 159 Counternarrative, 165 D Creative mind, 207 Dance and music, 12, 18, 24, 44, 45, 181, 212 Creative thinking: and the Four Cs, 202, 203; Darker side, wondering at and about the, 75 general tools for, underusing, 108; question Darling-Hammond, Linda, 29–30 kit for, 89–92; teaching for, 208, 209–210; Darwinian view, 131–132 as well-mapped, 211. See also Twenty-first- Dawkins, Richard, 132 century skills Dead hypotheses, 83 Crime, consideration of, ways of knowing Debate, 143, 144–147, 148, 153, 210 involved in, 144–145, 147, 150 Decision making, question kit for, 89 Critical thinking: and the Four Cs, 202, 203; Declarative sentences, 165 general tools for, underusing, 108; teaching Dede, Chris, 119 for, 208, 209–210; as well-mapped, 211. See Deduction, 153 also Twenty-first-century skills Deliberate transfer, 112 Crosstopics: as bucket systems, 188–192, Deliberation, 59, 60, 61, 69, 229 193, 195, 242, 243; deepening learning in, Democracy, 132; and big questions, 93; 217, 222; essentialness of, 187, 192–193, learning about, weaving big know-how into, 194, 242; position of, 193, 195, 242–243; 208; and lifeready learning, 98, 100–101, supplementing/complementing with, 105, 106; rating, for big understandings, 62; 182–187, 188, 189, 193, 195, 242; twenty- understanding, 53, 54–55, 57, 59–60, 93, first-century themes as versions of, 202. See 111, 113–115 also Interdisciplinary education/learning Democracy and Education (Dewey), 7 Cultural divide, 151 Depth and breadth, 66 Cultural icons, relying on, risk in, 127 Dershowitz, Alan, 143, 144–145, 146, 147, Cultural issues, 22 148, 150 Cultural literacy, 33–34, 127, 137–138 Describing: discussion of ways of, including, Cultural Literacy (Hirsch), 33 167; ways of, 149, 150, 152–153, 155, Cultural slants, 149 164, 169 Cultural studies, 135 Descriptive versus causal geography, 30–31, 34 Culture, classroom, 209 Design thinking, 179 Curiosity: behind big questions, 73, 94; Details, diving into, addressing, 168–169 fostering, 23; intellectual, 75, 94; intense, 2 Dewey, John, 7, 63 Curriculum: and the achievement agenda, Diamond, Jared, 31, 71–72, 74, 75, 86, 92 31; constructed around greatest hits Digital technologies: crosstopic involving, 185; from the disciplines, issue with, 162, 168; diversity of information sources offered conventional, problems with, 28, 141; by, 42; leveraging, 238; place of, in lifeready crowded, 216, 219; decision making about, learning, 118–120, 121. See also Technology addressing, 19; expanded, call for an, 120; Diploma worth having, 176 in a hierarchical structure, 40–41, 46; ideal Disciplinary thinking styles, different, debate universal, fallacy of an, 55; inverted, fear demonstrating, 143, 144–147. See also of the, addressing, 219–220, 222; job of Knowing, ways of any, 207; lifeworthy, constructing a, 25, Discipline-based learning, 189 47, 69, 95, 122, 142, 170, 195, 222, 228, Disciplined Mind, The (Gardner), 181 Index 265 Disciplines: array of possibilities in the, 232; general, 37; hallowed mission of, 21; big buckets of the, 123; bridges between Holy Grail of, 36; match between today’s life and the, 187; contribution of the, 124; world and traditional, 40–41; paradigm deepening learning in the, 217, 222; and shift needed in, 120; participation in, 9; digital technologies, 118; displacement repurposing, call for, 171–172; structure of, of the, threat of, addressing, 219–220; learning agendas and the, 39–43; support emerging, 192, 194, 240; four dimensions for, issue of, 29; two-pronged crisis in, 226. of understanding in the, 148; greatest hits See also specific aspects of education from the, constructing curriculum around, Education reimagined. See Reimagining issue with, 162, 168; in a hierarchical education structure, 40–41, 46, 104; hybrid, 3, 173, Educational imagination, fundamental act 175, 178, 192, 194, 225, 226, 232, 240; in an of, 229 inverted curriculum, 219; list identifying Electives, 3, 16 important, 197–198; literacy in the, Emerging disciplines, 192, 194, 240 lifeworthy learning addressing, 15–16; Empathy, priority of, list ranking, 198, 199 making the case for algebra from the, 128– Empirical science, 154, 157, 163 130; making the case for poetry from the, Encounters of the third kind, 17, 18 124–127; making the case from A to Z from End of Education, The (Postman), 57, 171, 188 the, 130–138; in a network structure, 42, Energy: learning about, weaving big know-how 46–47, 104; overview of, 123–124; position into, 208, 209; and lifeready learning, 105, of, 193, 195, 242–243; reframing; reframing 106, 132; limited sources of, questioning, the, 180–182, 192, 194, 232, 241; renewing 89–90; understanding, 54–55, 57 the, 3, 28, 175–180, 192, 193, 194, 226, Energy bucket, 191 232, 240; summary points on the, 141–142; Engagement framework, 191–192 traditional and discrete, teaching beyond, 3, Engineering, 133, 153, 161, 179 28, 173, 226; as a typical precollege bucket Engle, Randi, 112 system, 124, 172, 239; using crosstopics English language arts. See Language arts to supplement/complement the, 182–187, Enthusiasm for particular learning, 188, 189, 193, 195; ways of thinking in the, addressing, 16 lifeworthy learning addressing, 15; and what Entrepreneurship, 3, 204. See also Twenty-first- is good for younger learners, 138–141. See century skills also specific disciplines and subdisciplines Entwistle, Noel, 109, 147–148 Discovery, 158 Environment, priority of, list ranking, 198 Disorientation, 60 Epistemic forms, 148 Disposition: conventional teaching neglecting, Epistemic games, 147, 148 112; and cultivating twenty-first-century Essential questions, 84–85, 95, 180–181 skills, 2, 201, 202, 205, 209, 221; initial, Essential Schools movement, 84, 180, 241 to wonder, erosion of, 78; thinking, Ethic of Excellence, An (Berger), 184 investigation of, 107–108; to understand for Ethics: and big know-how, 200, 221; and big oneself, 109. See also Attitude questions, 74, 87, 94; big understandings and, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 62, 68, 92, 110, 224, E 230; from the disciplines, 130, 131, 172, East and West, juxtaposition of, 134–135 178; and lifeready learning, 108, 109, 110, EcoMUVE project, 119 115, 120, 236; priority of, list ranking, 198, Economics, 22, 123, 132, 133, 136, 137, 153, 199; theme pointing to, 181; and ways of 176, 177, 178, 186, 236 knowing, 144; and wisdom, 224, 245 Educating for Global Competence (Mansilla & Euclidean geometry, 152, 153, 155, 156, 157, Jackson), 184 159, 162, 167 Education: compulsive coverage in Euclid’s way of knowing, 152–154, 155, 156, conventional, 66; contentious world of, 158, 159, 161, 162 getting political traction in the, 212; Dewey European Reference Framework for Key on knowledge and, 7; different vision Competencies for Lifelong Learning, 57, of, need for a, 20–23; early forms of, 9; 203–204 266 index Evidence, 88, 89, 93, 114, 115, 149, 155, 156, Forgotten knowledge, 10, 17 158, 159, 160, 162, 163, 166 Forms, defined, and as a dimension of Evolution, theory of, controversy over, 19 understanding, 148 Evolutionary psychology, 225 Four Cs, 202–203 Evolutionary thinking, 146 Fractions, 99–100, 236 Exemplars: big understandings growing from, Framing, bounded versus expansive, 112 137; nature of, 127; opportunity offered French Revolution, 11, 12, 18, 23, 24, 27, 36, by, 126 37, 38, 50, 53, 57, 104, 106, 126 Exercises, issue with, 116, 117 Freudian theory, 106 Expansive framing, 112 Fundamental puzzles of the human condition, Expectations, set, addressing, 63 engagement with, 192 Expeditionary Learning Core Practices Fundamental question about learning, (document), 184 approach to addressing the, 4–5 Expeditionary Learning model, 184–186, 188 Further learning, 59, 60–61, 69, 151, 229 Experience: different worlds of, organizing Future-wise vision, need for a, 21 content by, 191–192; diverse, tacit knowledge growing through, 215–216; G involving, in the learning process, 112, 114– Game Theory, 136 115, 116, 237; knowing from, 167–168 Game worth playing, making the, 110–111 Experiments, 147, 154, 156, 163, 168, 209 Games, defined, 148 Expert amateurism, 38, 39, 43, 47, 52, 119, Gandhi, Mahatma, 223–224, 245, 246 176, 180, 240–241 Gardner, Howard, 57, 101, 148, 181–182, Expertise agenda, 24, 36–39, 40, 42, 43, 46, 47, 206–207 58, 176, 179–180, 224, 226, 240–241, 244 General education, 181, 243 Explaining, 102, 232; discussion of ways of, Generative question, 158 including, 167; ways of, 149, 150, 153, 156, Genuine understanding, 99–102 164–165, 169 Geography, 30–31, 34, 72, 123, 176, 183 Exploration, comparative, 167 Geology, 86 Geometric Supposer, 158–159 F Geometry, 37, 152, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158– Facing History and Ourselves program, 183, 159, 161, 162, 167 186, 187 Germ theory, 132 Faiman, Caity, 160 Gershwin, Ira, 127 Faith, 149 Gibson, Nellie, 139 “Fallen Angel” narrative, 172, 182, 188 Global Achievement Gap, The (Wagner), 204 Falsifiability, 155–156 Global competence, 184 Ferguson, William, 148 Global perspectives/problems, 3, 28, 42, 173, Fertile questions, 85–86, 95 190–191, 226 Financial Systems, 132 Global studies, 134, 137, 183–184, 187, 226 Five Minds for the Future (Gardner), 57, Go-gap, 28 206, 207 Good, the, as an organizing theme, 181, 182 Five minds, framework of the, 206–207 Google, 35, 226, 249 Fixed structure, 227 Gore, Al, 31 Flat World and Education, The (Darling- Gould, Stephen Jay, 143, 144, 146, 148 Hammond), 29 Governance bucket, 191 Flexibility, balancing coherence with, 234 Government, 132 Flexible knowledge, 21, 59 Grand narratives, 57, 171–172, 182, 188 Flexible structure, 43, 227 Gravity, 132 Flexible understanding of fundamentals, 240. Greek tragedy, 145–146 See also Expert amateurism Grid systems, 242 Folly, idea of, 97–98 Grotzer, Tina, 101, 211 Foreign knowledge, 101 Guns, Germs, and Steel (Diamond), 31, 71, 75 Forest for the trees, not seeing the, 157 Gymnastics/Gymnasium, 132 Index 267 H Information age paradigm, shift to an, need Habits of mind, framework of, 205 for a, 120 Hakuin Ekaku, 248–249 Information, media, and technology skills, Half-truths, 105–106 201. See also Twenty-first-century skills Handbook on Peace Education (Salomon & Information searches online, 35–36, 119, 244 Cairns), 183 Information source: digital, 119; in a Hard parts, working on the, principle of, 103 hierarchical structure, 41, 46, 104; in a Harpaz, Yoram, 85 network structure, 42, 47 Harvard General Education program, 181 Information technologies, attention to, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 119 curricula including, 179 Harvard University, 143 Information-knowledge-wisdom, 246, 247 Health/health care, 20, 132, 190, 212 Infusion approach, 103, 209–210, 222 Hetland, Lois, 83–84, 205–206 Innate knowledge, 80 Hierarchical structure, moving from a, 39–43, Inquiry projects, 185–186 104, 118, 173, 226–227, 239 Inquiry-oriented learning, 75, 78. See also Big High-stakes testing, addressing, 16–17, questions 238–239 Insight, 3; and big know-how, 200, 221; and Hirsch, E. D., 33, 34, 137–138 big questions, 74, 87, 94; big understandings Historical data, 168 and, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 62, 68, 92, 110, 224, Historical thinking, 144, 168 230; from the disciplines, 125, 130, 131, 172, History, 19, 36, 39, 65, 67, 86, 123, 131, 132, 133, 178; epistemic, 148; and lifeready learning, 134, 136, 137, 147, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 108, 109, 110, 115, 120, 236; near-accidental 168, 169, 176–177, 180, 181, 183, 186, 210 moments of, 143; and ways of knowing, 144, Holocaust, 183 151; and wisdom, 224, 245 Holt, Tom, 165, 166, 168, 169 Inspirational questions, 77, 78 Homer, 125, 127, 132–133 Instruction, organizing frameworks for, 116–118 Homer Simpson (character), 132, 133 Intelligences, multiple, 206 Housen, Abigail, 88 Interdisciplinary education/learning, 3, 28, 42, Human Commonalities, as organizing 86, 147, 148, 167, 175, 176, 182, 183, 185, themes, 189 186, 189, 226. See also Crosstopics Human condition, curiosity building the, 2 International Baccalaureate program, 157 Human life span, 22 International Conference on Thinking, 197, 201 Human rights, 132 International School of Amsterdam, 138 Humanities, 100, 101, 151 International School of Brussels, 189 Huntington, Samuel, 22 Internet, searching for information on the, Hybrid disciplines, 3, 173, 175, 178, 192, 194, 35–36, 119, 244 225, 226, 232, 240 Interpersonal know-how, listing, 213. See also Hypotheses, 83, 147, 154–155, 156, 158, 163, 168 Big know-how Interrogative questions, 74, 165, 166 I Introductory readings, use of, in different Ideas, that spread, 132 teaching approaches, 113, 114–115 Ignorance, 136 Intuition, 149, 166 Iliad (Homer), 125 Inverted curriculum, fear of the, addressing, Impractical practical, 127, 131 219–220, 222 Inconvenient truth, 31 Iowa, 57 Industrial age paradigm, shift from an, need Iraq conflict, analogy involving the, 104–105, for a, 120 108 Industrial Revolution, 77, 78, 164 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 183 Inert knowledge, 101, 106–107 Inference, 133, 153, 156, 157 J Inflammability, 133 Jackson, Anthony, 184 Information agenda, 24, 31–36, 39–40, 42, 43, Jacobs, Heidi Hayes, 176, 183–184 46, 47, 58, 224, 226, 244 James, William, 63, 83 268 index Jay, Eileen, 209 Knowledge and skills, important, list identifying, Job market, shift in the, 22, 199 197–198, 199. See also Big know-how Junior versions: for building understanding, Knowledge, buckets of. See Bucket systems 102–103, 121; of the disciplines for younger Knowledge explosion, 118 learners, 138–141; teaching, 236–237; ways Knowledge, seven seas of. See Disciplines of knowing in, 144, 151, 160–161, 167, 170 Knowledge-in-principle, calls for translating, Justice, 133 into knowledge-in-action, 215 Justifying, 149, 150, 153, 155–156, 157, 163, Kuhn, Thomas, 135 167, 169, 232 L K Land, Ray, 57–58 Kallick, Bena, 89, 205, 209 Language arts, 47, 175, 190. See also Literary Kaplan, Corinne, 139 studies; Literature Karnopp, Jennifer, 120 Larson, Gary, 11 Key competencies, 199. See also Twenty-first- Law, 144, 146, 147, 150, 153 century skills “Law of Diversity” narrative, 188 Kilograms, 133 Leadership, 3, 217–218. See also Twenty-first- Know-how, personal and interpersonal, of century skills general importance, 199. See also Big Leading learners, pitfall of, too much, 82 know-how Learner-centered instruction, call for, 120 Knowing, ways of, 24, 124; Bacon’s, 154–156, Learners’ enthusiasms, addressing, 16 158, 159, 161, 162, 163; byways and Learning: case-based, 117, 242; collective, 9, 18; highways in, 166–169; Euclid’s, 152–154, deep, relevance to, 203; on the diagonal, 148; 155, 156, 158, 159, 161, 162; in general, by doing, 167; empowering, 160; enthusiasm 147–151; inclusion of, 232; in junior for particular, addressing, 16; expanding versions, 144, 151, 160–161, 167, 170; and universe of what’s worth, 2–3, 173, 225–226; the kinds of work it does, 149; Newton’s, fundamental question about, addressing 161–162; other, 149, 166, 167–168; overall, the, approach to, 4–5; further, 59, 60–61, missing significant features of, 157; 69, 151, 229; importance of, 23; inquiry- overview of, 143–144; summary points on, oriented, 75, 78; lifelong, 22–23, 61; once- 169–170; three different, debate providing and-for-all, 61; online, 231; project-based/ example of, 143, 144–147; Thucydides’, problem-based, 117–118, 167, 176, 185–186, 162–165; and ways of learning, 157–159 242; questioning what’s worth, 2, 3–4, 5, 7, Knowledge: acquaintance, 16, 21, 32, 33, 10, 93, 124, 172–173, 218, 224–225, 227, 34, 45, 56, 60, 135, 169, 231; associated, 248, 249; set expectations for, addressing, 63; 59; collective, 94; common, shared base as a skill, 23; studio, 117, 118; that is whole, of, need for a, 33; complex, learning 103; transfer of, 61, 111–112, 115–116, 208; and formulating, 148; conceptually ways of, and ways of knowing, 157–159. difficult, 101; Dewey on education and, See also Knowledge; Lifeready learning; 7; as a dimension of understanding, 148; Lifeworthy learning; Understanding and the disciplined mind, 207; flexible, Learning agendas, 24; acknowledging, 244; foregrounding, 21; foreign, 101; inert, 101, and a comparison of two units, 43–46; 106–107; and the information agenda, education mired in, 224, 226; and efforts 36; innate, 80; lifeworthy future of, role of to renew the disciplines, 175, 176, 179–180; education in the, 9; naive faith in transfer framing, 112; limited, frameworks reaching of learning and, 115–116; nature of, 27; past, 58; overview of, 27–28; and the professional, lifeworthy, 11; purpose of, structure of education, 39–43; summary 27–28; recipe, 59; ritual, 101; tacit, 101, points on, 46–48; types of, described, 28–39; 215, 216, 217; that’s yielded a return on and ways of knowing in junior versions, investment, examples of, 11–12; true, 160; worthiness of, 226 guiding to, 80; unused and forgotten, 10, Learning and innovation skills, 201, 202 17; on the way to wisdom, 223–224, Learning Causality in a Complex World (Grotzer), 245–248. See also Learning; Understanding 101, 211 Index 269 Learning expeditions, 184–185 Literacy: competent, 33; cultural, issue of, 33– Learning opportunities, making a choice 34, 127, 137–138; disciplinary, approach of, about, 62–63 148; in the disciplines, lifeworthy learning Learning science, 215 addressing, 15–16. See also Basic skills Learning to learn, 214–215 Literary studies, 66, 95, 116, 127, 147, 159 Leaves of Grass (Whitman), 127 Literature, 39, 123, 126, 131, 133, 134, 135, Legal thinking, 143, 144–145, 146, 147, 136, 140, 159, 168, 169, 175, 180, 181, 150, 151 216–217, 218 Levy, Frank, 22 Live hypotheses, 83 Life and career skills, 201, 202 Living questions, 83–87, 95 Life situations, connecting with, 3, 28, 42, Logic, 133–134, 148, 153, 154 47, 173 Logic of Scientific Discovery (Popper), 156 Life span, human, 22 Lifelong learning, 22–23, 61 M Lifeready, defined, 98 Make Just One Change (Rothstein & Santana), Lifeready learning, 24; and building 86 understanding through thinking, 102–103; Making Learning Whole (Perkins), 99, 101, 102, and crosstopics, 187; difference between 103, 110, 117, 215, 236 lifeworthy and, 236; lack of, 157; overview Making Thinking Visible (Ritchhart, Church & of, 97–99; pathways and pitfalls in, 115–118; Morrison), 89, 209 place of digital technologies in, 118–120, Mansilla, Veronica Boix, 148, 184 121; and rabbit holes, 169; summary points March of Folly, The (Tuchman), 97 on, 120–122; teaching democracy for, Marxian view, 137 111–115; and understanding as applying, Mastering content. See Content mastery 103–105, 121, 237; and understanding as Mathematical inquiry, 103 caring, 109–111, 115, 116, 119, 121, 238; Mathematical modeling, 103, 128–129, 130, and understanding as noticing, 105–109, 134, 138, 152, 161, 162, 167, 170, 176 115, 119, 121, 237–238; and understanding Mathematical thinking, 144, 151, 166–167, 168 as thinking, 99–102, 115, 119, 121, 236; and Mathematical truth, 152, 158 ways of knowing, 167 Mathematics, 36, 38, 39, 47, 56, 65, 90, 91, Lifeworthy, defined, 8 116, 117, 123, 128, 133, 134, 135, 136, 147, Lifeworthy learning: call to reimagine 156, 159, 161, 170, 176, 180, 181, 190, 198 education for, 227–228; choosing, 25, 47, McConachie, Stephanie, 148 69, 94–95, 121, 141, 170, 194, 221–222, 228, McCune, Velda, 109 233–236; concern for, displaying a, 8; and Meaningfulness: need for, 7; reach for, 23 the contribution of big understandings, Measurement, 133 58–62; curriculum for, constructing a, Memes, 132 47, 69, 95, 122, 142, 170, 195, 222, 228, Memorized information, 236 239–244; difference between lifeready and, Meno dialogue, 80–81, 82, 83 236; envisioning, importance of, reason for, Mentoring, 231, 235 20–23; identifying, 25, 46–47, 68–69, 94, Metaphors, study of, 134, 138, 139 120, 141, 169, 194, 221, 228, 228–233; as Method, questions as content and, 75, 82, 95 key, 8–9; need for, 227; obstacles to, 28, 30; Methods, as a dimension of understanding, 148 overview of, 7–8; path toward reimagining Meyer, Jan, 57–58 education for, 23–24; and quadratic Mindstorms (Papert), 57 equations, 14–18; questing for, 18–20; Misconceptions, 101 quests involving, list of, 24–25, 228; and Misorientation, 60 rabbit holes, 169; at risk, 9–10; teaching for, Mitosis, 7, 43–44, 45–46, 47, 56, 124 25, 47–48, 69, 95, 121, 141, 170, 195, 222, Mnemonics, 46 228, 236–239; and when it falters, 12–13; Mobile devices, 119 and when it thrives, 10–12 Modeling, mathematical. See Mathematical Linear causality, 211 modeling Lipman, Matthew, 82 Morrison, Karin, 89, 209 270 index Motivation, student, 78, 110, 189 big understandings and, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, Multiple intelligences, 206 62, 68, 92, 110, 224, 230; and crosstopics, Multiple linear equations, 8, 36, 160 185; from the disciplines, 126, 128, 130, Multiyear curricula: learning agendas and 138, 172, 178; and lifeready learning, typical, 36, 37–38; organizing, way of, 24, 107–108, 109, 110, 115, 120, 236; and 195. See also Bucket systems; Curriculum wisdom, 224, 245 Murnane, Richard, 22 Opportunity cost, 17–18, 58 Muse, following your, 39 Oral communication, 134 Music. See Dance and music Orient and Occident, juxtaposition of, Mutual causality, 211 134–135 Orientation, 59–60, 61, 68–69, 68–69, 229 N Out-of-the-box thinking, 224. See also Creative Narrative flow, question kit for, 88–89 thinking Narrative, historical, 164, 165, 166 Narratives, grand, 57, 171–172, 182, 188 P Nationalism, 134 Pandora’s box, 1–2, 23 Nature appreciation, 181–182 Papert, Seymour, 57 Network structure, moving to a, 39–43, 104, Paradigm, scientific, 135 118, 173, 226–227, 239 Paradigm shift, fundamental need for a, 120 Neuroscience, 178 Paradox, 23, 28, 40, 46, 80, 118, 120, 137, New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, The (Hirsch 173, 226 et al.), 33 Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), 57, Newton, Isaac, 161 201, 203 Newton’s laws, 51, 93, 156, 185, 208 Passion, 62, 66, 75 Newton’s way of knowing, 161–162 Peace education, 183 Niche questions, 87, 94, 124, 162, 220, 244 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 63 Niche understandings, 56, 61, 65, 66, 69, Peloponnesian Wars, 163 119–120, 124, 128, 141, 185, 220, 231, 233, Peloponnesian Wars, The (Thucydides), 164 234, 244 Perceptual discernment, 149 Nisbett, Richard, 135 Performative view of understanding, 102–103 Noticing: encouraging, 3; involving experience Personal know-how, listing, 213. See also Big with, 112, 115, 117; lack of developing, 113, know-how 116–117; understanding as, 105–109, 115, Petrosky, Anthony, 148 119, 121, 237–238 Philosophical thinking, 143, 144, 145, 146, 178 Novum Organum Scientiarum (Bacon) Philosophy, 178–179, 183 Nozick, Robert, 143, 144, 146, 148 Philosophy for Children approach, 82 Number theory, 159, 160 Physical education, 123, 132, 190 Physical, personal, and social learning, 189 O Physical sciences, 67–68, 181 Observation, 158 Physics, 116, 123, 131, 132, 147, 153, 176, Oceanography, 123 185, 186 Odyssey (Homer), 125 Picasso, 236 Oedipus, legend of, 145–146 Pinkner, Steven, 183 O’Hara, Debbie, 138, 139 Pinsky, Robert, 127 Ohm, George, 49 Plato, 80, 82, 83, 86, 179 Ohm’s law, 49, 50–52, 61, 62, 100, 103–104, Playing the game, 167 105, 109, 111, 116 Poetry, 124–127, 128, 137, 140, 159 Once-and-for-all learning, 61 Policy level, bucket system at the, 174 Online information searches, 35–36, 119, 244 Politics, 134, 186 Online learning, 231 Popper, Karl, 155–156 Open questions, 86 Postman, Neil, 57, 171–172, 174, 182, 188 Opportunity: and big know-how, 200, Postmodernist perspective, critiques from, of 217–218, 221; and big questions, 74, 87, 94; Gardner’s themes, 182 Index 271 Poverty and wealth, 137. See also French Questions: analytical, 77; essential, 84–85, Revolution; Global perspectives/problems 95, 180–181; fertile, 85–86, 95; generative, Poverty cycle, 29 158; inspirational, 77–78; interrogative, 74, Practical Criticism (Richards), 159 165, 166; living, 83–87, 95; as method and Practicality, addressing, 17, 125, 127, content, 75, 82, 95; open, 86; procedural, 128, 131 74; review, 74; Socratic, 79–82, 83, 93, 95; Practice: extensive, transfer of learning with, type and form of, 74, 77; undermining, 112; opportunity for, consideration of, in 86; universal, 87–92, 95, 158. See also Big choosing big know-how, 218–219 questions; Niche questions Pragmatic wondering, 77 Prediction making, 102 R Probability and statistics, 14–15, 20, 27, 38, 39, Rabbit holes, addressing, 168–169 54, 98, 108, 136, 159, 176 Rabi, Isidor, 72, 78 Problem finding, 91, 117, 176 Random House dictionary, 35 Problem posing, 91 Range, sampling for, 67, 69, 95, 141, 170, 222, Problem solving, 22, 23, 89–90, 91, 102, 116, 233, 235 117, 147 Reading and writing, 3, 30, 131, 134. See also Problem-based learning, 117–118, 176 Basic skills Problem-deaf, 108 Realities, addressing, 17 Problems: different ways of looking at, 143; Reality, study of, from the disciplines, world-class, attention to, organizing by, 135–136 190–191 Reasoning, 80, 101, 133–134, 156, 165. See also Procedural questions, 74 Thinking Professional engagement, 191–192, 212 Recipe knowledge, 59 Professional knowledge, lifeworthy, 11 Redescribing, 150 Professionalization, early, emphasizing, Refined perceptions, knowing from, 168 243–244 Reflective learning, 112 Project-based learning, 117–118, 162, 167, Reframing disciplines, 180–182, 192, 194, 185–186, 242 232, 241 Proof, 91, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, Reframing topics, 64–65, 128 160, 162, 167, 170 Regan, Rebecca, 89, 209 Psychology, 3, 178, 180, 183, 186, 225, 240 Regional perspectives, teaching beyond, 3, 28, Purposes, as a dimension of understanding, 148 42, 173, 190, 226 Pursuing answers, importance of, 92–93 Reigeluth, Charles, 120 Putnam, Robert, 137 Reimagining education: call for, 227–228; and Pythagorean theorem, 152, 153 charting the progress of developing ideas, 46–48, 68–69, 94–95, 120–122, 141–142, Q 169–170, 194–195, 221–222; full tool kit Quadratic equations, 30, 37, 124, 130, 160, for, 228–244; quests in, list of, 24–25, 228; 231; cautionary tale offered by, 12–13; path toward, 23–24 lifeworthy learning and, 14–18; rating, for Reinventing Schools (Reigeluth & Karnopp), 120 big understandings, 56, 62; reframing, 64, Relational causality, 211–212 65, 128 Relevance gap, 30, 31, 37 Quality teaching, 29 Religious and meditative experiences, knowing Quantum mechanics, 135 from, 167–168 Quest, archetypes of, 135 Religious studies, 137 Quest to Learn School, 189–190 Renewing disciplines, 3, 28, 175–180, 192, 193, Question formulation technique, 87 194, 226, 232, 240 Question kits, 88–92, 95 Respectful mind, 207 Questioning what’s worth learning, 2, 3–4, Return on investment (ROI), 7, 9, 10, 11, 18, 5, 7, 10, 93, 124, 172–173, 218, 224–225, 23, 30, 61, 226 227, 248, 249. See also Lifeworthy learning; Review questions, 74 Uppity question Revolutionary War, 98, 164, 185 272 index Revolutions, waves of, engaging in the story Skills. See Basic skills; Twenty-first-century of, 177 skills Richards, I. A., 159 Skills and knowledge, important, list Richness, sampling for, 67, 69, 95, 141, 172, identifying, 197–198, 199. See also Big know- 222, 233, 235 how Riddle, 106, 107 Small world paradox, 40, 46, 118, 120, Rigor, concerns about, 37, 38, 39 173, 226 Risk: and lifeready learning, 105, 106, 108, Smart bets, making, 18, 230–231 110; understanding, 54–55, 57, 60 Smart sampling, 66–68, 67, 95, 122, 127, 141, Risk creation, argument about, 145, 147, 150 179, 207, 216–217, 216–217, 218–219, 220, Ritchhart, Ron, 74, 89, 107, 209 222, 233, 234, 235 Ritual knowledge, 101 Smith, Adam, 137 Rothstein, Dan, 86–87 Snow, C. P., 151 Routine skills, 236 Social justice, 185 Rowson, Jonathan, 247 Social media, 119 Social science, 178, 225 S Social studies, 36, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 176, Salomon, Gavriel, 112, 183 181, 187, 190, 210 Sampling. See Smart sampling Sociobiology, 225 Santana, Luz, 86–87 Sociology, 3, 86, 180, 181, 183, 186, 240 Scaffolding, 63 Socrates, 80–81, 82, 179 Scale of events, history focusing on, 176–177 Socratic questions, 79–82, 83, 93, 95 Scardamalia, Marlene, 79 “Spaceship Earth” narrative, 171–172, 182, Scheffler, Israel, 63 186, 188 Schwartz, Daniel, 61 Specialization, 36–37 Schwartz, Judah, 158–159 Specialty studies, 231 Science, 39, 67, 90, 123, 130, 133, 134, 135, Speculation, 158, 230–231 151, 159, 161, 165, 169, 176, 179, 180, 181, Spielberg, Stephen, 17 190, 198, 225 Sports for the Mind, as a theme, 190 Science labs, 167 Standards, common, 175–176 Scientific inquiry, 161 Stanislavski, Constantin, 84 Scientific method, 154–156, 157 Statistics. See Probability and statistics Scientific thinking, 143, 144, 145, 146, 151, Stereotypes, 101, 108 168, 209 Sternberg, Robert, 246 Selfish Gene, The (Dawkins), 132 “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Self-understanding, priority of, list ranking, (Frost), 127 198, 199 Structure, 39–43, 104, 118, 173, 193, 195, Semi-immersive augmented realities, 119 226–227, 242 Sense-making kits, 105. See also Big Students: in charge of making choices, 235; understandings in charge of questions, 87; in a hierarchical Seven seas of knowledge. See Disciplines structure, 40–41, 46, 104; motivation of, Seven seas of the world, 123 78, 110, 189; in a network structure, Shaffer, David, 148 42, 47 Shakespeare, 127, 208, 237 Studio habits of mind, 205–206 Sheridan, Kimberly, 205–206 Studio learning, 117, 118 Silos, 3, 242 Studio Thinking (Hetland, Winner, Veenema & Simon, Paul, 22, 127 Sheridan), 206 Simple teaching-learning process Super-buckets, example of, 189 architecture, 116 Survival skills, seven, 204–205 Six beyonds, 2–3, 8, 18, 28, 173, 226 Swartz, Robert, 89, 209 Sizer, Theodore, 84, 180 Synthesizing mind, 207 Skepticism, 63, 156, 163, 166, 168 Systems thinking, 211 Index 273 T Thinking skills movement, 103, 209 Tacit knowledge, 101, 215, 216, 217 Thinking strategies, learning, 209–210 Tasmanian Ministry of Education, 64, 128 Thinking styles, different, appearing in debate, Teachers: and the achievement agenda, 31; in 143, 144–147. See also Knowing, ways of a hierarchical structure, 40–41, 46, 104; and Thinking-Based Learning (Swartz, Costa, Beyer, knowing about ways of knowing, 160–161; Regan & Kallick), 89, 209 of literature, smart sampling by, 66, 216, Thornton, Stephen, 37 217; in a network structure, 42, 47; Socratic, Threshold concepts, 57–58 issues facing, 81–82 Throughlines, use of, 83–84, 95 Teaching for understanding framework, 148 Thucydides, 163–164 Teaching for Understanding Guide, The (Blythe & Thucydides’ way of knowing, 162–165 Associates), 102 Time management, 81 Teaching for Understanding (Wiske), 99 Tishman, Shari, 107, 209 Teaching-learning process, focus on, 98, Tokenism, 116, 195, 210 102–103, 112–115, 116. See also Lifeready Tool kits: contrasting, 148; drawing on and learning extending, 117; practical and impractical, Technical expertise. See Expertise agenda inclusion of, 127; support offered by, 235 Technical needs, addressing, 14–15 Tool, turning from topic to, 105, 157, 187, 193 Technology: information, attention to, Tool-like applications, inclusion of, 116–117 curricula including, 179; priority of, list Topic, turning from, to tool, 105, 157, ranking, 198; skills in, 201. See also Digital 187, 193 technologies Trade-offs: choice bringing, 65, 220, 242; Technology for Learning Consortium, 180 structural, involving bucket systems, 193, Technology, Innovation, and Education (TIE), 195, 242 118–119 Tragedy, 136, 138, 140, 160 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 125, 126 Tragedy of the Commons, 136 Testing, high-stakes, addressing, 16–17, Transfer of learning, 61, 111–112, 115–116, 208 238–239 Transforming American Education: Learning Testing, scientific. See Experiments Powered by Technology (USDE document), 119 Textbooks, learning agendas and, 31, 42 Transportation, contemporary, influence of, Thayer, Ernest, 140 21–22, 40 Theory of Knowledge course, 157 Trends: broad, in pushing the boundaries Thinking: building understanding through, of what’s taught, 2–3; of connectivity, 40; 102–103, 121; infusing teaching of, into informing smart speculation, 230–231; teaching content, 208–210; involving teasing out, and putting them to work, 18. experience with, 112, 115, 117; lack of See also Six beyonds developing, 112; moves in, study of, Trojan horse, story of the, 97, 98, 106, 108, 107–108; out-of-the-box, 224; priority of, 115, 133 list ranking, 198, 199; understanding as, True knowledge, guiding to, 80 99–102, 115, 119, 121, 236; visible, and True, the, as an organizing theme, 181, 182 question kits, 88–92 Truth, 152, 158, 179 Thinking about, shift from, to thinking with, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed 237, 238 (Gardner), 182 Thinking about Thinking course, sessions of: Tuchman, Barbara, 97–98 described, 143–144; excerpts from, 144–147; Twenty-first-century skills, 24; as big what was illuminated from, 148–149 understandings, 57; and bucket systems, Thinking Classroom, The (Tishman, Jay & 174; and Common Core’s English Perkins), 209 language arts standards, 175; cultivating, Thinking dispositions, investigation of, trend toward, 2, 28, 173, 221, 226; as an 107–108 educational agenda, 199; and the Four Cs, Thinking Historically (Holt), 165 202–203; and learning expeditions, 185; Thinking routines, 88–92 lifeworthy topics around, 20; in a network 274 index structure, 42, 47; US framework for, Visionary level, bucket system at the, 174 201–203. See also Big know-how Visual arts, 123, 181, 212 Two Blind Men Crossing a Log (Hakuin Ekaku), 248–249 W Tyranny, 136 Wagner, Tony, 204 Way Things Work, as a theme, 190 U Wealth. See Poverty and wealth “Ulysses” (Tennyson), 125–126, 127 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 137 Uncertainty, predication in the face of, Weber, Max, 137 23, 229 Wellness, as a theme, 190 Undermining questions, 86 Wertheimer, Max, 153 Underprojecting, 106 Western philosophy, 179 Understanding: as applying, 103–105, 115, What Happened at Lexington Green (Bennett), 119, 121, 237; building, through thinking, 162–163 102–103, 121; as caring, 109–111, 115, 116, Whitehead, Alfred North, 106 119, 121, 238; collective, 94; deep, seeking, Whole game, playing the, principle of, 103 80; digital technologies contributing to Wiggins, Grant, 176, 178 learning for, 119; and the disciplined mind, Wikipedia, 123 207; everyday language about, 101; four Wilbur, Richard, 127 dimensions of, in a discipline, 148; idea of, “Will to Believe, The” (James), 83 49–50; as noticing, 105–109, 115, 119, 121, Winner, Ellen, 205–206 237–238; performative view of, 102–103; Wisdom: knowledge on the way to, 245–248; teaching democracy for, 111, 113–115; meaning of, 246–247; in motion, 223–224; teaching for, development of, 83; as teaching toward, 224, 246; way to, 24 thinking, 99–102, 115, 119, 121, 236. See also Wise judgments/actions, 246, 247 Big understandings; Niche understandings Wiske, Martha Stone, 99 United Nations, 133 Witte, Marlys, 136 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 132 Wondering at and wondering about, 75–79, Universal questions, 87–92, 95, 158 83, 85, 94 University entrance exams, addressing, 16–17 Wondrous side, wondering at and about University of Arizona, 136 the, 75 Unknown: disciplinary study of the, 136; “Word Weavers/World Makers” narrative, 188 educating for the, 20–23, 54, 73, 78, Workplace changes, 22 225, 249 World, changing, aspects of a, 3, 21–23, 40, Unschooled Mind, The (Gardner), 101 225. See also Small world paradox Uppity question, 1–2, 9, 13, 17, 18, 20, 30. See World-class problems, organizing content by, also Questioning what’s worth learning 190–191. See Global perspectives/problems US Department of Education, 119 Worlds of Truth (Scheffler), 63 US Twenty-First-Century Skills Framework, Writing. See Reading and writing 201–203 X V Xenophobia, 137 Veenema, Shirley, 205–206 Verification, focus on, 158 Y Victorian Essential Learning Standards, 189 Yali’s question, 71, 74, 75, 78, 86, 92 Video gaming, school inspired by, 189–190 Yeats, William Butler, 127, 137 Vietnam conflict, 98, 104–105, 106, 108, 110, Yenawine, Philip, 88 126, 127, 136, 165 Virtual environments, 119 Z Visible Thinking approach, 88–92, 209 Zen, 137, 249 WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT Go to www.wiley.com/go/eula to access Wiley’s ebook EULA. Document Outline Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Learning for Tomorrow The Expanding Universe of What’s Worth Learning I’m Not Going to Tell You What’s Worth Learning Chapter 1: Lifeworthy Learning: Where Knowledge Goes in Learners’ Lives Lifeworthy as Key Lifeworthy at Risk When Lifeworthy Thrives When Lifeworthy Falters Lifeworthy versus Quadratic Equations How about Technical Needs? How about Ways of Thinking in the Disciplines? How about Literacy in the Disciplines? How about Loving That Kind of Thing? How about High-Stakes Testing and University Entrance Requirements? Close Encounters of the Third Kind Questing for Lifeworthy Educating for the Unknown Toward Reimagining Education Chapter 2: Learning Agendas: The Mixed Blessings of Achievement, Information, and Expertise The Achievement Agenda and Its Soft Tires The Information Agenda and Its Soft Tires The Expertise Agenda and Its Soft Tires From Hierarchy to Network Dancing Mitosis and Designing a Fish Chapter 3: Big Understandings: Learning That Matters in Learners’ Lives Big Understandings Defined Big and Not So Big Big for Life The Big Choice The Big Save Smart Sampling Chapter 4: Big Questions: Learning beyond What’s Settled and Known Big Questions Defined Wondering At and Wondering About Socratic Questions Living Questions Question Kits But What about Answers? Chapter 5: Lifeready Learning: Making What’s Worth Learning Ready for Life Understanding as Thinking Building Understanding through Thinking Understanding as Applying Understanding as Noticing Understanding as Caring Understanding Democracy Pathways and Pitfalls The Place of Digital Technologies Chapter 6: The Seven Seas of Knowledge: Lifeworthy Learning from the Disciplines What Good Is Poetry? What Good Is Algebra? What Good from A to Z? What Good for Younger Learners? Chapter 7: Ways of Knowing: Powerful Patterns of Thought from the Disciplines and Beyond Three Ways of Knowing Ways of Knowing in General Euclid’s Way Bacon’s Way Ways of Learning Ways of Knowing Junior Ways of Knowing Newton’s Way Thucydides’ Way Byways and Highways Chapter 8: Buckets of Knowledge: Organizing Content across the Years of Education The Bucket Problem Renewing the Disciplines Reframing the Disciplines Crosstopics Crosstopics as Bucket Systems Better Bucket Systems Chapter 9: Big Know-How: Twenty-First-Century Skills and Beyond Listing Big Know-How The US Twenty-First-Century Skills Framework The Four Cs The European Reference Framework Seven Survival Skills Habits of Mind Studio Habits of Mind Gardner’s Five Minds Teaching Big Know-How Mapping Big Know-How Accommodating Big Know-How Choosing Big Know-How The Inverted Curriculum Chapter 10: Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom Yesterday on the Way to Tomorrow Learning on the Way to Lifeworthy Quest 1: Identifying Lifeworthy Learning A Fundamental Act of Educational Imagination Big Understandings and Big Questions Insight, Action, Ethics, and Opportunity “Big” as a Smart Bet Niches for Niche Understandings The Disciplines as Sources Ways of Knowing Big Know-How: Twenty-First-Century Skills and Their Relatives Quest 2: Choosing Lifeworthy Learning Smart Sampling Reaching for Richness Reaching for Range Balancing Coherence and Flexibility Who Chooses? When Learners Choose Choosing Controversial Topics—or Not Quest 3: Teaching for Lifeworthy Learning Lifeready Learning Understanding as Thinking Junior Versions From Thinking About to Thinking With Understanding as Applying Understanding as Noticing Understanding as Caring Start the End in the Middle Leverage Digital Technologies Have Confidence about Standards and Exams Quest 4: Constructing a Lifeworthy Curriculum Bucket Systems Renewing the Disciplines Expert Amateurism Reframing the Disciplines Crosstopics What’s on Top? Big Know-How Again About College Education Acknowledging the Agendas of Achievement, Information, and Expertise Knowledge on the Way to Wisdom Two Blind Men Crossing a Log Notes Index Wiley End User License Agreement