Kieran Egan

Cheery Friday Greetings to our Learning How to Learners!

Book (review) of the week: Kieran Egan’s “The Educated Mind”

This book review (which won the ACX book review contest) introduced me to the ideas of someone I had never heard about before — Kieran Egan, the (recently deceased) Canadian educational philosopher. 

The review lays out Egan’s vision, and imagines how it could revolutionize learning for students of every age, from preschool to adults. The approach? A new 50,000-foot understanding of what education is, which begins by exploring where humans came from, what we are, and what emotionally matters to us.

Warning: this book review is nearly as long as a book! That said, I find it worth it (and bouncy and funny to boot). If listening is more your style, you can hear it read aloud on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the web.

The review is written by Brandon Hendrickson, whose own quest is to bring Egan’s revolution into schooling and homeschooling. If you’d like to dip your toes into what an Egan approach to science can be, I recommend reading one of the recent posts on his substack “The Lost Tools of Learning” — “Your Solar System is Wrong.” For a new way to add more emotion to the insights from A Mind for Numbers, see “How to Build a Deep Practice Book.” (This essay provides the best description Barb has ever seen of the techniques she herself used in her mid-twenties to go from failure to resounding success and love of math.)  Brandon is also the founder of Science is WEIRD, which is creating a weekly science program that helps kids fall in love with the world.

Does Curiosity Have a Shady Side?

This fascinating article by Annelise Jolley in the Greater Good Magazine describes how  Columbia researcher Daphna Shohamy and her colleagues have found evidence for at least two different types of curiosity: general-interest curiosity and deprivation curiosity.  This sounds innocuous until one realizes that a strong need to know (deprivation curiosity) can be affiliated with intellectual closure and intolerance.  (“I’ve got it all figured out now—no need to bother me with the facts!”)  This in turn might explain the creative success of some of science’s nastiest characters, as for example, Nobel Prize winner William Shockley.  Shockley’s work on transistors is undeniably important, yet it seems to have been propelled, not by curiosity, but by a desire to find something that would allow him to “one up” his colleagues. Incidentally, Shockley’s biographer, Joel Shurkin, characterized Shockley as perhaps “the worst manager in the history of electronics,” although Shockley had even more nefarious attributes. 

We have a tendency to believe that creativity arises from an overarching and benevolent general-interest curiosity, which is indeed related to intellectual humility. This eye-opening research reveals a great deal about curiosity that comes from a shadier provenance.   

Generative AI for Everyone

One of our favorite teachers of all time is Andrew Ng. His calm, knowledgeable presence helps build your own confidence in anything related to machine learning.  Andrew’s latest course, “Generative AI for Everyone,” has just come out, and we’re already well into it.  It’s a fantastic general primer on LLMs and generative AI. Don’t miss the hottest course yet on this sizzling topic!

The New Coursera Podcast!

Barb dives in to give the scoop on learning with impressario Arunav Sinha, the VP, Global Communications @ Coursera.  We explore:

• Common misconceptions about learning
• Strategies to conquer procrastination and master new skills
• The future of education in the digital age
• How to cultivate a lifelong passion for learning

Are You Really Open-Minded? (or can I change your mind?)

Australian scientist and television reporter Vanessa Hill spent a year studying the science behind  intellectual humility. In this perceptive video, she finds herself asking “Am I the asshole?” [Hat tip, Adam Trybus]

That’s all for now. Have a happy week in Learning How to Learn!

Barb, Terry, and the entire Learning How to Learn team

• Uncommon Sense Teaching—the book and Coursera Specialization!
• Mindshift—the book and MOOC
• Learn Like a Pro—the book and MOOC
• The LHTL recommended text, A Mind for Numbers
• For kids and parents: Learning How to Learn—the book and MOOC. Pro tip—watch the videos and read the book together with your child. Learning how to learn at an early age will change their life!