I believe there is a value to rote learning especially in the earling years.
The Times tables shoulb be memorized, for example. I do not mean to devalue that type of learning- in fact in I think students should learn to spell correctly in grade school. Both types help prepare our brains. In higher education we need different strageties. And in some fields they need to think on ‘thier feet” so to speak but it is true other countries have surpassed us in Science and Math!
I would like to say THANK YOU to whoever chose to give us Surely You are Joking to read over winter break. It was a perfect selection. Feynman’s joy in teaching (and life) was inspirational.
You asked us to discuss his writing about research in particular. The obvious chapter on research was Cargo Cult Science, which was adapted from Feynman’s commencement address at Caltech in 1974. In it, he spoke of the need for scientific integrity in research and why it is so important to be utterly honest in reporting even data that questions a researcher’s conclusions.
Law and Paralegal Studies students are not required to do research in labs (ala the physics and psychology experiments that Feynman describes) but we do require them to do many hours of research in law libraries. One of the most important concepts that we constantly reinforce is that you never look only for the law that supports your case but also for the law your opponent will likely cite. We teach our students to anticipate the research that will weaken their conclusions, similar to Feynman’s insistence on publishing all research findings “not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another”.
Until I read “Surely”, I only knew of Feynman in relation to his testimony to the Rogers Commission about the cause of the Challenger explosion in 1986. There is a famous photo of Feynman freezing an o-ring in a glass of ice water. My friend had it made into a t-shirt back in the day…
It caught my attention when he, through the description of his everyday experiences said that some people âlearnâ, but donât 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 didnât 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.
I was particularly struck by the section in the Feynman book entitled “A Map of a Cat?” in which he discusses his transition to and his time at Princeton. This chapter seemed particularly relevant to us in a gen ed seminar and possibly to our students at City Tech. First of all, I found his depiction of his visit to the philosophy seminar really funny. It is, I think, objectively funny, though I’m sure it made me laugh because of my own involvement in the discourse of philosophy and in the study of philosophy. But the gist of what is being discussed in that short passage recurs in the chapter as a whole. For instance, when he first arrives at Princeton and is asked if he would like tea with lemon or cream, and he replies, “both,” as well as at the library when he asks the reference librarian for “a map of a cat,” and the reference librarian really has no idea what he is talking about. The chapter as a whole seems to be about disciplinary boundaries and terminology/cultural terminology, and how important these things are to being seen as an insider or outsider.
I really liked that Feynman was so willing and eager to actually participate in seminars outside of his discipline and to ask questions that in some cases were not relevant, but in some cases very relevant, and, for the most part, be taken seriously. To me, this chapter is really about how important it is to invite questioning from disciplines other than your own and to take it seriously, even though the terminology/linguistic etiquette is not perfect. My own research has to do with what allows people to have the authority to ask questions and I find often at City Tech, as many other faculty members do, that our students have very good questions to ask but often do not feel authorized to ask them because of their perceived or actual distance/sense of exclusion from institutions/processes of cultural authorization.
On a separate note, though still on the subject of interdisciplinary coincidences, I was reading an article by David Olson over the break on the subject of literacy history and sociology, and he actually quotes Feynman in his article. The quote is not from _Surely, You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman_, but elsewhere. Nevertheless, I found the quote very interesting. Olson writes, “Revision is âwork on paperâ in the sense that it is interacting with the written form somewhat independently of the intentions of the writer. Clark (2008) cites an exchange between Nobel- prize winning physicist Richard Feynman and the historian of science Charles Weiner. Weiner had come upon some of Feynmanâs original notes that he characterized as Feynmanâs ârecord of day-to-day workâ. Feynman contested the description saying âI actually did the work on the paper … Itâs not a record, not really. Itâs working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper. Okay?â (Gleick, 1993, p. 409).”
This speaks to both engaging students in education and everyday research.
It begins on pg 211 when Mr. Feynman is in Brazil teaching a group of science students who were becoming teachers. They were dong well on their written and oral PhD exams- but he became curious about their responses and questioned them further outside of the test. He found that they were quite good at memorization but not at critical or creative thinking. No thinking outside the box. He realized the students âshut downâ class members who took upâ valuable classâ time asking questions that might lead to this type of thinking! Sound familiar.
It is a syndrome I find with my Nursing Students- they want to memorize- if I pose the question in a different way they have trouble solving the problem. We stress critical thinking skills are necessary but then we push for passing the NCLEX and stuffing them full of that data! I am wondering if we can find a balance so we can graduate a Nurse who is truly prepared for anything.
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.
NPR has such valuable resources, here is a link to a show about reducing or eliminating lecture in a science classroom. I found the concept and approach refreshing. Read this article
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