Einstein was humble in sharing his thoughts, but he was a deep thinker about the nature of education, addressing both teaching and learning. He provides both a philosophical perspective and practical tips for today’s digital educators. For those of us who work with students every day, there are lessons to be learned and applied in our effort to improve what, as well as how, our students are learning from us. While I suggest everyone read his words in their entirety, here are wonderful nuggets that serve as stimulating food for thought.
MEMORIZATION VERSUS CURIOSITY
The first point he makes is to urge us to move past memorization and to cultivate curiosity and inventiveness in our students. He said it would be wrong to view the school as “simply the instrument for transferring a certain maximum quantity of knowledge to the growing generation. … On the contrary, the aim must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals, who, however, see in the service of the community their highest life problem.” He wants our schools to cultivate curiosity and critical thinking. Elsewhere he is often quoted as saying, "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
As digital educators, this is easy to facilitate. We can easily challenge students to use design thinking to solve problems and come up with fresh solutions. Project-based learning, problem-based learning and personalized, competency-based learning all allow students to move past memorization to achieve both the ability to apply what is learned and to use what is learned to solve new problems! Digital tools can help students ask new questions and look at problems in new ways and from different perspectives.
Our students have opportunities at their disposal that Einstein did not: to engage in deeper inquiry through online discussions, collaborative projects and interactive content. Most importantly, students in these learning environments can address real-time, real-world problems. Einstein would be happy if we moved past memorization to learning environments where curiosity thrives and there are more questions than answers!
DICTATION VERSUS GUIDANCE
Einstein’s second point is one we often hear: a modern educator’s role is not to be an all-knowing authority, but a guide who helps students discover knowledge for themselves. He writes, "The teacher must have the humble attitude of a guide and a helper, not the proud attitude of a dictator of truth."
Was he the first one to distinguish the sage on the stage from the guide on the side?
For one thing, at any point in time, students are not all on the same page in our classrooms, and dictation in the form of lectures often falls on the deaf ears of both the bored and the lost and confused. Rather than working to please the teacher in the front of the room, Einstein favors a focus on student learning and a range of personal approaches that match the student’s learning style. The exciting thing is that today’s digital educators can use technology to create learner-centered experiences that ensure mastery before students move on, that adapt to student interests and backgrounds, and where students have more control of their learning.
This will require the training, or re-training, of digital educators who must learn to facilitate their student’s learning. By increasing student choice in the learning activities at hand, educators can help students learn to solve problems by tapping into both the content and skills they've mastered, and to take full responsibility for what and how they learn! In these classrooms, teachers get out of the way of their students’ active and collaborative learning.
In his address to SUNY, Einstein says, “But personalities are not formed by what is heard and said but by labor and activity. The most important method of education accordingly always has consisted of where the pupil was urged to actual performance.”
COERCION VERSUS ENCOURAGEMENT
The third point Einstein makes is one not often heard. He said, “Give into the power of the teacher the fewest possible coercive measures, so that the only source of the pupil’s respect for the teacher is the human and intellectual qualities of the latter.” He is concerned that teachers can easily crush the “loving interest in the object and a desire for truth and understanding, and thus to that divine curiosity which every healthy child possesses, but which so often is weakened early.”
I think about this every day when I see students harshly corrected, made to feel bad, made to feel stupid, or made to feel worthless by some meaningless measure of academic performance. Many refer to our current education system as a testing and sorting system. It ignores the fact that we all learn by mistakes, and we ought to rejoice in them and what they tell us we have left to learn and master. Einstein is concerned about any effort by teachers to say that some students are “better, stronger, or more intelligent than a fellow being or fellow scholar.” He feels that such easily “leads to an excessively egoistic psychological adjustment, which may become injurious for the individual and for the community.”
Einstein tells us that “[t]he value of a man, however, should be seen in what he gives and not what he is able to receive. The most important motive for work in the school and in life is the pleasure in work, pleasure in its results, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.” That point alone is worthy of study and discussion when we talk about our goals for students and the messaging we send as they pursue their studies under our direction.
KNOWLEDGE VERSUS SKILLS
A fourth item of note is how he addresses what should be studied and how it should be taught. He says that the topics taught are of secondary importance. He argues that “[i]f a young man has trained his muscles and physical endurance by gymnastics and walking, he will later be fitted for every physical work. This is also analogous to the training of the mind and of the mental and manual skills. Thus, the wit was not wrong who defined education in this way: ‘Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.’”
He writes, “I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which one has to use later directly in life.” He says that is treating the individual "like a dead tool.” He wants the student to leave school “as a harmonious personality, not as a specialist.”
Just as I wrote earlier about durable skills desired by business, Einstein's address to SUNY tells us:
“The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge. If a person masters the fundamentals of his subject and has learned to think and work independently, he will surely find his way and besides will better be able to adapt himself to progress and changes than the person whose training principally consists in the acquiring the detailed knowledge.” As digital educators, we know the world of work is changing rapidly and that knowledge is ever evolving, but general cognitive skills will be of great use despite any changes.
Digital educators must take on this challenge and reject the use of online learning environments that focus on content without developing the skills to use the information. There are so many opportunities for students to put their knowledge to work. We are all working on developing critical thinking skills, and we can provide many ways for students to develop those along with the skills of effective and empathetic communication.
Einstein is often quoted as saying, "Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think." As digital educators, we can make this a reality. We have tools to promote problem-solving at the core and help students actively participate in the application of what they have learned. Project-based learning is just one form of that approach and virtual reality and augmented reality is another. Einstein would love to visit today’s problem- and project-based classrooms.
ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL VERSUS INDEPENDENT LEARNING
Last, Einstein wants education programs to encourage students to be independent learners, pursuing education on their own without the threat of failing a test or getting a bad grade. Digital educators know how to do this and have seen students blossom when allowed to figure things out for themselves, solve problems and help others with their work. There are many ways this can occur and be made part of a meaningful education record, instead of being assigned a meaningless letter grade.
Einstein recognized that students learn differently, at different speeds and in different ways. He once said, "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." The exciting thing is that digital educators have tools Einstein never dreamed of that allow customization of learning paths to meet each student's individual needs, from adaptive learning systems to the range of media formats of content to be studied. By allowing students to demonstrate their learning achievements differently, we can foster the creative expression that Einstein urged educators to awaken in their students.
Albert Einstein reminds us that the true goal of teaching is to inspire curiosity, foster independent thinking, and nurture students' intellectual and emotional growth. Digital technologies may have changed the classroom and tools we use, but good teaching principles don’t change. As digital educators, we must accept the challenge to adapt Einstein’s thinking to today’s students so they may become active, curious, independent learners, ready to take on the challenges of a brave new world.
