I decided that since I was trying to teach 'style' of thinking in science and engineering, and 'style' is an art, I should therefore copy the methods of teaching used for the other arts - once the fundamentals have been learned.
What I think is the most important thing to learn about any instrument is the basics of music. Learn your ABCs before you write a Hemingway novel.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with those three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.
I think laptops should be banned from schools. Until you can prove you can add up on your fingers or think independently in your head, you have learnt nothing.
I often find out, once people have trained, you can never really re-train. When you get trained, you learn to lock up; you learn a wrist lock and, okay, onto the next thing, onto the next thing. You never really go back to the fundamentals.
Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don't know how to read, I don't care how creative you are. You're not doing your job.
I think visual literacy and media literacy is not without value, but I think plain old-fashioned text literacy and mathematical literacy are much more powerful and flexible ways to organize your mind.
A schoolchild should be taught grammar—for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy.
