Comments on: More Important to Teach Principles than Facts

By: mc

mc — Tue, 19 May 2009 07:36:45 +0000

@Miklas: You may be right about the textbooks, but I am yet to take a class where the teacher taught everything in the book.

By: Richard K Miller

Richard K Miller — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:11:56 +0000

@Miklas: Good point. The incentives don’t encourage “less” instruction, do they?

By: Miklas

Miklas — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:08:55 +0000

Also. Try looking at the thickness of textbooks from different countries. In most countries authors are paid according to amount of pages and text length, so the books become bloated with information that might not be useful and a waste of time to learn, but the authors have to write it in order to get paid (and be able to afford sending their kids to college )

By: Richard K Miller

Richard K Miller — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:09:14 +0000

@Justin Carmony: Good point about interviewing. Joel Spolsky says the same thing — hire a developer who is “smart” and “gets things done”. The tools or languages the developer happens to know at the moment aren’t as important.

@Tyler: I wonder if the inventions produced here are more a product of the entrepreneurial and risk-tolerant culture, as well as infrastructure differences like lower taxes, less red tape for starting a company, etc. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t seem that it’s our schools that are explicitly encouraging entrepreneurship or inventing. Or maybe the heavy load causes the “free spirits” to drop out of school and start their own companies?

@Katie: Hey, thanks for that link.

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:14:06 +0000

Hey – I liked this post as well. To go along with it, I thought you might like this:

Learn How Schools and Parents Around the Globe Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child At A Time
http://www.theleaderinme.org/lim_trailer.html

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 04:43:10 +0000

Excellent post and powerful points. I do agree that we try to stuff ourselves full. It’s like a knowledge binge. Rather than gorge ourselves, it is important to learn the skills that will help us work faster and more efficiently; meanwhile utilizing the tools of modern day.

One mystery puzzle that I can’t seem to put into place… If we are cramming in too much into our schooling system, we are still doing something right. Afterall America has invented the radio, television, automobile, internet, atomic bomb, computer, first to land on the moon and many other modern day conveniences.

I agree our schooling system can be improved, but at the same time our system has fostered tremendous success. It apparently isn’t broken. Can you help connect the two?

By: Justin Carmony

Justin Carmony — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:31:29 +0000

I can’t agree with you more. I’ve been having the same feeling about education lately, and this is a great explanation of it. Schools, teachers, and students focus on learning pieces of information and spitting it back out. However, today self-education is a skill you’ll need for the rest of the education. Learning “principles” that transcend facts and apply to any career are crucial to separate a person from the rest.

I’ve interviewed several people for Software Development or Web Design that could tell all sorts of facts about how to do things. However, learning new skills, being a productive employee, setting and meeting goals are completely foreign to them.

By: Heather

Heather — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:09:09 +0000

Thank you for this post. I found it extremely interesting and plan to pick up my own copy. I too have always felt it was more important to have the skills and ability to learn vs straight facts and knowledge.

By: Rick

Rick — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:37:39 +0000

Thank you for posting this. Although I have read several of Stephen Covey’s books I haven’t heard of The Leader in Me.