Enquiry Demands the Ability to Formulate Questions
“I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write. Augustine of Hippo. I am coberst and I approve of this message.
“Joseph Schwab said in 1962 that science is most commonly taught as a “rhetoric of conclusions." He developed sophisticated arguments for teaching science as enquiry."
An independent mind is one that is grounded in ‘enquiry’. Enquiry demands the ability to develop significant questions and the ability to utilize good judgment while separating the wheat from the chaff.
John Dewey, a great philosopher, psychologist, and pedagogy discussed the discrepancy between the skills valued in adults and the skills taught to children in schools. Dewey lamented the fact that independent thinking skills were demanded of adults but our children were being taught the converse in our schools.
My grade school, high school and college education convinces me that Dewey is accurate. I am a retired engineer and my contact with the sciences of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and engineering were completely an experience that was algorithmic (a step-by-step procedure for solving problems) in nature. Later I took courses in the humanities and these were more of a historic enquiry into who thought what and why they thought it at the time that they did so.
In my opinion the natural sciences do not prepare an individual to become an independent mind whereas the humanities do a better job of that.
Does your schooling lead you to agree with me and Dewey?
Quotes from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...01/ai_n8934732.
Enquiry Demands the Ability to Formulate Questions
Enquiry Demands the Ability to Formulate Questions
The whole point of specialization is that you learn some things at the expense of other things. This is what allows our society to advance and develop. As much as we'd like, we can't actually have a nation of philosophers. Not everyone could do that and still have all the basics of existance provided for the collective, not everyone is capable of the kind of analytical thought required of philosophy, not everyone is capable of the kind of analytical thought required of the hard sciences. There's not as much overlap as you'd like to think.
Enquiry Demands the Ability to Formulate Questions
As they say: A specialist learns more and more about less and less until eventually they know everything about nothing. A generalist learns less and less about more and more until eventually they know nothing about everything.