1. Historical Leaders Education Observations
from Confucius to L. Summers

2. Advise from 20th Century World Leaders
from Churchill to C. Murray

See Education Improvement     World Strategies     Manifesto

Thanks! author/editor Walter Antoniotti 2/21/24
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1. Historical Leaders Education Observations
return to Proposed Education Manifesto 

Treatment of Students

Academic Rigor

Desired Result

Plato "Do not train a child to learn by force of harshness; but direct them to it by what amused their minds so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each."

"Try not to have a good time... this is supposed to be educational." Charles M. Schulz

"To know how to suggest is the art of teaching."
Henri-Frederic Amiel

"The better-performing students will be treated much as chess prodigies are today" ... The lesser-performing students will specialize in receiving motivation." 
Tyler Owen, Average is Over  (2013) 198 See How Children Succeed by Paul Tough 2012

 

 

 

 

 

Full Story Authors Note: This is not the first study to reveal that computers do not enhance learning. Like everything, if you really want to know what is going on, "...follow the money."

"Despite all the ruminations about 'skills bias' in the patterns of technological change, there is no such [skills] shortage. To the contrary, our economy is full of highly technical and skilled people.  It remains short of jobs for those people, as every college counselor and every coordinator of a training program knows.
J. Galbraith,  Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay

F.D.R. was neither an outstanding student nor athlete, but he entered enthusiastically into life at Groton and did well enough to go to Harvard in 1900. At Harvard he put much of his energy into his social life and extracurricular activities' Source

"I have never let schooling interfere with my education" Mark Twain

"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon." E. M. Forster

"...often there is little or no payoff from having a little bit more..." Lester Thurow

"Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in."
Leonardo da Vinci

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." Oscar Wilde

"Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results." John Dewey

“The problem is not the content of textbooks, but the very idea of them.” Sam Weinberg

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you don't stop." Confucius

The most important thing about education is appetite. Winston Churchill

"...Strengthening values also demands a national commitment to excellence in education. Ronald Reagan

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." 
Robert Frost

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."  Plutarch

Education is no substitute for intelligence." Frank Herbert

"A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.”
Abraham Lincoln

 

The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.

Booker T. Washington
 

The Future of Work (2015) in Our Competitive World Lawrence Summers
"...the idea that you can just have better training and then there are all these jobs, all these places where there are shortages and we just need the trained people is fundamentally an evasion."  " The core problem is that there aren't enough jobs. If you help some people, you could help them get the jobs, but then someone else won't get the jobs. "
 "Delivering literacy--even on the high level appropriate to a knowledge society--will be an easier task than giving students the capacity and the knowledge to keep on learning, and the desire to do it."... "All it requires is to make learners achieve. All it requires is to focus on the strengths and talents of learners so that they excel in whatever it is they do well." " But schools do not do it. They focus instead on a learner's weaknesses." P. DruckerThe New Realities (1989)


"Not all students need programming but they need to easily make the most of technology."
Tyler Cowen, Average is Over(2013) Tyler sees educators as motivators and online managers rather than as a professor." See VI. of
Tech-based education"

Epilog "In 1914, John Alexander Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, addressed the first session of his two-year lecture course as follows: 'Gentlemen, you are now about to embark on a course of studies that (will) form a noble adventure…Let me make this clear to you. ..nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life – save only this – that if you work hard, intelligently, you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole purpose of education.'  ...
quote reminds me of the famous Joan Robinson line: 'The purpose of studying economics is ...to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.'

Advise from 20th Century World Leaders

Image result for winston churchill portrait

Winston Churchill 

The most important thing about education is appetite.”

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Educational Change Abstract
1) P. Drucker
emphasize what learners do well
2) A. Kohn homework doesn't help young students
3) T. Cowen best students special, others should be motivated
4) W. Antoniotti duration and continuation not speed are important.
5) Harvard College 2013 courses about life

Economic Return on Education Investment Abstract
6) P. Krugman increasing wage premium for higher education over
7) L. Thurow small payoff from little bit more education
8) F. Pryor and D. Schaffer poor graduates got low level jobs
9) C. Murray more investing in our best and brightest
10) A. Greenspan education reform will take many years
11) James Heckman early childhood development investment best

1) Peter Drucker believed "Students Should Have Studied What They Do Well"  "Delivering literacy--even on the high level appropriate to a knowledge society--will be an easier task than giving students the capacity and the knowledge to keep on learning, and the desire to do it."... "All it requires is to make learners achieve. All it requires is to focus on the strengths and talents of learners so that they excel in whatever it is they do well."  But schools do not do it. They focus instead on a learner's weaknesses." The New Realities pages 236 and 237. Peter thinks that student who do poorly with math should not be let anywhere near algebra. This should make students happier but remember algebra teachers need jobs.

2) Alfie Kohn "In fact, there isn’t even a positive correlation between, on the one hand, having younger children do some homework (vs. none), or more (vs. less), and, on the other hand, any measure of achievement.  If we’re making 12-year-olds, much less five-year-olds, do homework, it’s either because we’re misinformed about what the evidence says or because we think kids ought to have to do homework despite what the evidence says." Homework: An Unnecessary Evil? ... Findings from New Research

3) Tyler Cowen believed education can create potentially valuable workers by helping them improve their value by using smart machines and that these two are stronger complements than ever. Students may not be able to calculate like computers but we can teach students to be better readers of character and emotion and to be the best interpreters of the masses of information provided by the behavioral sciences and big data. Not all students need to do programming but they need to easily make the most of technology. He sees educators as motivators and online managers rather than as a professor.  From Average is Over, 2013 by Tyler Cower  Could a majority on workers hurt by Geekability add to A. Greenspan's fear of unrest?

4. Walter Antoniotti believes behavior is learned, students respond well to adult disappointment, personality is set by grade one, most physical and behavioral characteristics follow a normal distribution with  most in the data in the middle and the few outcomes at the extremes deserve special attention, increased educational activity often generates less value per input unit, and for some people value per unit does not decrease. They can not get enough TV, socializing, reading, studying, video games, religion, drinking, gambling ...but
"
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you don't stop." Confucius

5) Harvard eventually replaced rhetorical principles, rote learning

1869–1909 Number/variety of classes multiplied, lecture system supplanted recitation and
students permitted a free course choice
1909–33 "A system of “concentration and distribution...” with general examinations and tutorials introduced.
1933-53 Breadth emphasized by first general education curriculum
1971–91 Courses chosen from seven areas
2013 Required courses connect to life beyond college

6) Paul Krugman "When asked to make economic comments as if he were looking back on 1996 from 2096..." Paul mentioned "...the devaluation of higher education."... "Or consider the panic over downsizing that gripped America in 1996. As economists quickly pointed out, the rate at which Americans were losing jobs in the nineties was not especially high by historical standards. Why, then, did downsizing suddenly become news? Because for the first time white-collar, college-educated workers were being fired in large numbers, even while skilled machinists and other blue-collar workers were in high demand. This should have been a clear signal that the days of the ever-rising wage premium for people with higher education were over, but somehow nobody noticed." The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science Editor's Note: They are still not listening and only change is 1.5 trillion dollars is owed by former college students.


7) Lester Thurow stated "Education is a very lumpy investment where often there is little or no payoff from having a little bit more."  ..."There are big returns to the first years of education (the education where one gains literacy) and big payoffs to the last years of education (a college or graduate degree where one distinguishes oneself from the pack) but only small payoffs to those years of education that move the individual from somewhat below average to somewhat above average."
283 The Future of Capitalism: How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World

8) F. Pryor and D. Schaffer feel "It is those college-educated workers with functional literacy little better than the average high school graduate..."   "... who end up in these lower-level jobs." from Whose Not Working and Why

9) Charles Murray encouraged more investing in our best and brightest in his 1994 book Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. He later reinforced this meritocratic system with "HALF OF THE CHILDREN ARE BELOW AVERAGE, TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COLLEGE, AMERICA'S FUTURE DEPENDS ON HOW WE EDUCATE THE ACADEMICALLY GIFTED, ABILITIES VARY." See  Real-world, Technology-based, Activity-driven, Question-based College Curriculums

10) Alan Greenspan wrote we can't forget about the middle.  "The cost of educational egalitarianism is doubtless high and may be difficult to justify in terms of economic efficiency..." Some achieve more easily at far less cost, than others. "Yet there is a danger in a democratic society in leaving some children out sync with its institutions. Such neglect contributes to exaggerated income concentration, and could conceivably be far more costly to the sustaining of capitalism and globalization in the long run. ." "Much of our skill shortage can be resolved with education reform. But that will take years."  The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World published in 2007 by Penguin Group, pages 406 and 407

See Leaders Educational Observations Throughout History

11) James Heckman The highest rate of return in early childhood development comes from investing as early as possible, from birth through age five, in disadvantaged families. Starting at age three or four is too little too late, as it fails to recognize that skills beget skills in a complementary and dynamic way."

Proposed Changes Summary
W. Churchill
educational appetite must not be destroyed
P. Drucker concentrate on what students do well
A. Kohn homework replaced with more useful experiences
T. Cowen educators as motivators and online managers
W. Antoniotti Education is about finishing, many student drop out, teacher should be in deep do do.

H. College courses connect to lives beyond college

Economic Return Summary
P. Krugman economic return of college investment falling
L. Thurow
minimal payoff for those in the middle
F. Pryor. D. Schaffer many graduates learn little/earn little
C. Murray invest more in best and brightest
A. Greenspan not investing in could cause social unrest
J. Heckman invest early for best results