Thursday, February 17, 2011

Fewer subjects may be better

Interesting thought:

The greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for ...life.
- CS Lewis
(Hat tip: MiaZagora via Facebook.)

2 comments:

K5 Learning said...

Its an interesting quote. In the pre-20th century western world, students pursued a much narrower range of subjects.

Obviously young kids need to focus on learning to read, write and do basic math, as the building blocks for everything else, but there is an argument that even older kids should learn fewer subject in much greater depth. Even many undergraduate programs in University today consist of not much more than a survey of various disciplines, leaving in-depth study to the graduate level.

K5 Learning
www.k5learning.com

Luke Holzmann said...

I'm going to have to ponder that one... the thing that's bumping around in my brain right now is: Subjects shouldn't be disconnected. Perhaps it's not the we should study fewer subjects but that the subjects should be tied more and more to each other...

I don't know yet, my brain's still processing...

~Luke