It looks to me like you’re making the sophisticated point that some facts vary in usefulness. I agree.
The point being made by Gradgrind is much more basic: children should focus on Fact over Fancy. As an example, he refuses to teach his children fairy tales, deciding that they should learn science instead. (Unfortunately, Dickens presents science as dull collections in cabinets, and so the children are rather put out by this.)
It’s an empirical question if you deal in facts. But if you deal in fancies, everyone’s got their own fancy and nobody’s right or wrong, so there are no properly empirical questions.
The superiority of facts over fancy in [early] education is an empirical question though, right?
Yep, though I’ll point out that the quote isn’t limited to what we refer as ‘early’ education. I’m not an expert in education, so I won’t pretend to know a solid answer to that empirical question, but anecdotal evidence from various famous, clever, and productive people suggests that a childhood focused on facts is beneficial.
I think we can assume that no one would suggest that an education omit facts entirely (hence, ‘early’). I also agree that a fact-focused early education would be beneficial. The question raised by your quote is whether it would be beneficial to largely or entirely omit fancy. I do think that’s a tough empirical question, though that’s the kind of thing where empirical answers are not likely to be forthcoming.
Clearly, education in biology, mathematics, and the like should be factual. No one would argue with that. So what sort of thing are we talking about? What is the subject matter for which someone would even suggest fiction as a mode of education?
My guess is that we’re talking about something like moral education. I can’t think of any alternatives, anyway (other than education in the history of literature, but that suggestion would be question begging). Can we think of another way to provide a moral education that omits fiction?
Well we could certainly teach moral philosophy (though where that lies on the fact-fiction axis I don’t know) rather than literature. There we have another empirical question, though my experience has been that moral philosophy doesn’t go over very well with the very young. Tends to do more harm than good. Do you have a suggestion here?
One alternative (the alternative that Gradgrind had in mind, I think) is to omit moral education entirely. I take it Dickens’ thought was that this is the sort of thing you wouldn’t need if you were educating slaves in more sophisticated forms of labor, because their behavior is managed externally and they don’t need to give any thought to how to live their own lives. That’s my impression, anyway.
Clearly, education in biology, mathematics, and the like should be factual. No one would argue with that.
I don’t think my mathematics education was 100% fact based. We did discuss various thought experiments. We also did puzzles that were designed to train thinking skills.
The ability to work an hour with focus on a math proof is a lot more valuable than the axioms and theorems that I learned in the process.
Instead of trying to teach math facts it makes a lot more sense to concentrate on creating situation of deliberate math practice.
In university we had math courses we were allowed to bring us much paper into the exam as we wanted because the things that they wanted to teach us wasn’t written down facts but our ability to deal with them.
Math is a funny case, being very much a skill that needs training rather than a body of knowledge that needs learning. But it’s not as if you were learning mathematics on the basis of ‘fancy’ or fiction either.
Most of the problems that were printed in our school math textbooks were fictional. They were made up by the author of the book to illustrate some mathematical principle.
Clearly, education in biology, mathematics, and the like should be factual. No one would argue with that.
Dickens actually mocks Gradgrind for this:
No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadruped with several stomachs.
I would suspect another major point of contention is how much weight mathematics and biology should get relative to other subjects. (Now, Gradgrind does have the confusion, more obvious elsewhere, that classifications are important facts rather than fuzzy collections, and this is a confusion worth criticizing.)
One alternative (the alternative that Gradgrind had in mind, I think) is to omit moral education entirely. I take it Dickens’ thought was that this is the sort of thing you wouldn’t need if you were educating slaves in more sophisticated forms of labor, because their behavior is managed externally and they don’t need to give any thought to how to live their own lives.
It’s not clear to me what you mean by “moral education.” Gradgrind puts a lot of effort into cultivating the “moral character” of his children (in fact, this seems to be the primary reason for his banishment of fancy). Very little effort is put into teaching them how to cultivate their own character, which is what I would take moral philosophy to mean (but even that may be too practical an interpretation of it!).
http://xkcd.com/863/
It looks to me like you’re making the sophisticated point that some facts vary in usefulness. I agree.
The point being made by Gradgrind is much more basic: children should focus on Fact over Fancy. As an example, he refuses to teach his children fairy tales, deciding that they should learn science instead. (Unfortunately, Dickens presents science as dull collections in cabinets, and so the children are rather put out by this.)
ah, ok. I interpreted it as a preference for teaching Fact rather than Theory.
“children should focus on Fact over Fancy”
The superiority of facts over fancy in [early] education is an empirical question though, right?
It is in fact, but not in fancy.
Witty, but completely unclear—I have no idea what your point is.
It’s an empirical question if you deal in facts. But if you deal in fancies, everyone’s got their own fancy and nobody’s right or wrong, so there are no properly empirical questions.
Yep, though I’ll point out that the quote isn’t limited to what we refer as ‘early’ education. I’m not an expert in education, so I won’t pretend to know a solid answer to that empirical question, but anecdotal evidence from various famous, clever, and productive people suggests that a childhood focused on facts is beneficial.
I think we can assume that no one would suggest that an education omit facts entirely (hence, ‘early’). I also agree that a fact-focused early education would be beneficial. The question raised by your quote is whether it would be beneficial to largely or entirely omit fancy. I do think that’s a tough empirical question, though that’s the kind of thing where empirical answers are not likely to be forthcoming.
Clearly, education in biology, mathematics, and the like should be factual. No one would argue with that. So what sort of thing are we talking about? What is the subject matter for which someone would even suggest fiction as a mode of education?
My guess is that we’re talking about something like moral education. I can’t think of any alternatives, anyway (other than education in the history of literature, but that suggestion would be question begging). Can we think of another way to provide a moral education that omits fiction?
Well we could certainly teach moral philosophy (though where that lies on the fact-fiction axis I don’t know) rather than literature. There we have another empirical question, though my experience has been that moral philosophy doesn’t go over very well with the very young. Tends to do more harm than good. Do you have a suggestion here?
One alternative (the alternative that Gradgrind had in mind, I think) is to omit moral education entirely. I take it Dickens’ thought was that this is the sort of thing you wouldn’t need if you were educating slaves in more sophisticated forms of labor, because their behavior is managed externally and they don’t need to give any thought to how to live their own lives. That’s my impression, anyway.
I don’t think my mathematics education was 100% fact based. We did discuss various thought experiments. We also did puzzles that were designed to train thinking skills.
The ability to work an hour with focus on a math proof is a lot more valuable than the axioms and theorems that I learned in the process.
Instead of trying to teach math facts it makes a lot more sense to concentrate on creating situation of deliberate math practice.
In university we had math courses we were allowed to bring us much paper into the exam as we wanted because the things that they wanted to teach us wasn’t written down facts but our ability to deal with them.
Math is a funny case, being very much a skill that needs training rather than a body of knowledge that needs learning. But it’s not as if you were learning mathematics on the basis of ‘fancy’ or fiction either.
Most of the problems that were printed in our school math textbooks were fictional. They were made up by the author of the book to illustrate some mathematical principle.
I don’t see how the sense in which those problems are fictional is relevant to the discussion. Tapping out.
The topic is about whether to teach through fiction or facts. Whether something is fictional seems relevant.
Dickens actually mocks Gradgrind for this:
I would suspect another major point of contention is how much weight mathematics and biology should get relative to other subjects. (Now, Gradgrind does have the confusion, more obvious elsewhere, that classifications are important facts rather than fuzzy collections, and this is a confusion worth criticizing.)
It’s not clear to me what you mean by “moral education.” Gradgrind puts a lot of effort into cultivating the “moral character” of his children (in fact, this seems to be the primary reason for his banishment of fancy). Very little effort is put into teaching them how to cultivate their own character, which is what I would take moral philosophy to mean (but even that may be too practical an interpretation of it!).