It caught my attention when he, through the description of his everyday experiences said that some people “learn”, but don’t know how to apply what they know. He later makes reference to this while he describes his experience teaching in Brazil. I believe that it is a battle that educators constantly face, but not every educator address. The fact that Mr. Feynman, a great researcher and educator, recognizes this and published it in a book that later became a bestseller is a great beginning in redirecting the focus of education.

His stories kind of reminded me about myself during my College years. Right before graduation I was terrified to go out and get a job. I felt I had so much information, but I didn’t know how to use it. At that time, I decided that since I was not ready for a job, and because of the need to get a better training, I ended up applying for graduate school. When I think about my own education, very few professors had an impact in my life, and only those that had me work extra hard and think outside the box are the ones that motivated me to achieve my career goals. Today, as an educator I try to at least impact the careers of some of my students. I believe that focusing in critical thinking skills and applied knowledge is way more important than just memorizing a book chapter that probably will be forgotten the next week. Exercises that work improving writing skills, that promote critical thinking and situations where knowledge needs to be applied are way more important in the process of training good professionals. As I usually tell my students, I worked for a big Pharmaceutical Company and the least I used there in order to fulfill my duties was science. I totally agree with Mr. Feynman, and although I consider him a genius, I believe that there is so much we can do as educators to improve this and to prepare better professionals.

In “Safecracker meets Safecracker,” Feynman displays his characteristic jocularity: the fellow just genuinely loved to poke good-natured holes in widely-held but erroneous beliefs. He details his deep research into the technology and logic of everyday locks, revealing his tricks and methods along the way. He is doing what anyone could do, if determined and thorough enough. He also details the way people see locks, showing how we can become falsely secure (no pun intended) in our preconceived notions.

It took me a while to see that Feynman was not making fun of other people’s ignorance. At first I found him just so damned smug I could barely stand it. But slowly, as the stories progressed, I came to realize that I had judged him based on my own set of untested notions: I had literally judged his book by its cover blurb.

His drive is actually altruistic at the very bottom of it all: people are mistaken in their belief that their documents are secure, and he can prove it well before anything dire occurs. The fact that he reveals the weaknesses of the security system at Los Alamos in a humorous way is just Feynman’s method for making the lesson more palatable and memorable. What it all revealed for me was that as an educator, I can weave my small lessons into the living conversation I am having with my students. I can and must make these exercises come alive for them in ways that are relevant to them. That alone will reveal how approachable and possible learning and achievement actually are.

The chapter in the Feynman book that is resonating with me most strongly right now as I am returning from a year on sabbatical is “The Dignified Professor.” On page 171, he writes about not doing research when he starts his first teaching job. He writes about how he underestimated just how much work it is to be a good teacher. Teaching “burned him out.” Then, as he begins to adjust to being a professor, the impulse and drive to do research begins to return. On page 173, he writes, “…I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it.” He goes on the describe how observing a wobbling plate in the cafeteria ends in work for which he gets the Nobel prize.

Before my sabbatical, over the seven years that I had been at City Tech, I too had lost the joy in practicing my discipline which is photography. Little by little, I felt more and more guilt for not doing as much photography as I thought I should be. And at first on my sabbatical, all I was thinking about was quantity. As the year progressed, the “play” as Feynman would say returned. And the work got better. By fooling around to see what would happen, my newest and I think best body of work to date on the idea of the urban estuary started to happen. I don’t feel like I am making this work happen, willing it through discipline, it is just flowing out of working. I hope as I return to City Tech that I can keep Feynman in my mind as an example and remember that the best work begins with the pleasure of play.