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I think everyone is on the list to (hopefully!) learn but, as John said,
it's very easy to lapse into 'sponge mode'. I think we all do it
sometimes but we shouldn't let it become a habit. Perhaps the problem
is how we're taught in school (changed a lot over the years). When I
was a school we did calculus and the maths teacher went through it from
first principles - he said we didn't need to know it to 'do the sums'
but it provided background that helped to make it more than rote
learning. When I talked to him later he said he'd stopped doing it -
changes in the curriculum and the pressure to get results meant it
wasn't feasible any more, it was down to number crunching with
understanding limited to the few bright pupils that 'got it'.
I've been reading an excellent book recently (Information Anxiety by
Saul Wurman) and there's a bit in about a leading scientist whose mother
would greet him from school each day with 'Ask any good questions
today?'. The point he was making (very valid I think) is that we're
rewarded for answers when, maybe, it should be for questions. Answers we
can simply learn off and spew them out at the right time (exams!) but if
we're taught to question...
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