Facts Plus

I had the opportunity to attend a forum the first of this week where Linda Darling-Hammond was the keynote speaker. One of the many wise insights she shared was that educators need to be preparing students for a world that doesn't even exist at this point in time. She suggested that rather than teaching students an inordinate amount of facts that they then regurgitate, we need to be teaching them how to learn.

I totally concur with her recommendation....and I am also in agreement with what John Dewey said, "We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts."

Scott Anderson, the President and CEO of Zions First National Bank, gave some added insights to consider when he spoke recently at the Governor's Education Summit in Salt Lake City. The title of his speech was, Preparing the Workforce for the 21st Century. He noted in his speech that future workes needed to have knowledge skills in math, reading, speaking, science, history, literature, and the arts. Yet, these weren't sufficient. Anderson emphasized that there are 5 skills/traits that give added value: 1) Communication, 2) Interpersonal, 3) Creativity, 4) Hard work, and 5) Integrity/Morality.

If facts are important as a foundation, then the questions arise:

• Which facts?
• Who decides which facts?

These two questions will be addressed in tomorrow's post.

A Spiritual Leader Writes

Dr. Festus Obiakor from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee gave a presentation at BYU called Let Your Work Speak.

In order to have one's work speak, a spiritual leader will take time to read, ponder, reflect, and write. In other words, if spiritual leaders are to make a difference for diverse learners, they must think. Albert Einsten said, "The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking." If the dismal education world for diverse learners is going to change, there must be a change in thinking.

Benjamin Disraeli said, "The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it." Well, it may not have to be a book, but it at least needs to be a journal article (even if it is rejected!) or it may be no more than a "Letter to the Editor" or a personal journal entry.

This writing must not be done to please others, but it must follow the counsel of William Wordsworth, "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart....." One of the greatest writers of all time, Charles Dickens, learned this lesson. It was when he remembered and reflected upon his own life--the difficulties of his life--- and combined the images of the present with the past that he experienced an enormous burst of creative energy that subordinated all his problems, including his own depression and the possibility of financial ruin. The result of that burst of creative energy was the magnificent story, A Christmas Carol, which has blessed so many lives.


We learn from this incident in the life of Charles Dickens that not only does writing clear the cobwebs out of one's own head, but "The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think" (Edwin Schlossberg) and "But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think" (Lord Byron). And I would add, feel.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton eloquently expressed the impact writing can have on those who do the writing as well as those who read it: "The pen is mightier than the sword."