The disciplined mind Book

Very convoluted with a bunch of listicle chapters.
Didn't really dig it, perhaps because it's aimed at K-12 education.

People are better able to chart their life course and make life decisions when they know how others have dealt with pressures and dilemmas.

We need an education that is deeply rooted in two apparently contrasting but actually complementary considerations: what is known about the human condition, in its timeless aspects; and what is known about the pressures, challenges and opportunities of the contemporary (and coming) scene.

Continuing illiteracy in the world is not due to ignorance on how to teach the 3 R's, but rather failure to devote adequate resources to these tasks.

With lengthening lifespans and rapidly evolving body of knowledge, lifelong self-directed learning is now a necessity. The goal of education should be to inculcate a love of learning such that it will continue to take place even outside of the system.

Everyone must become as comfortable as possible with change.
And one must remain ever conscious of the constant of human experiences - the things that do not change, either because they cannot or because we do not want them to.


Decisions about what to teach, when to teach and even how to teach entail value judgements. Such decisions can never be dictated by knowledge of brain (e.g. even if children learn languages better when young is no reason to do so)

Young children have distinctive moral outlooks; for example, they focus on the amount of damage an act results in, rather than on the intention of the actor.

The persistence of early misconceptions is due to a number of factor: the unexpected strength of early representations; the fact that educators have not appreciated that strength and so ignored them; the tendency on the part of many adults to confuse the accumulation of factual information or cultural literacy with the alteration of robust mental representation; the pressure to cover too much material in a necessarily superficial manner. Solution: Depth over breadth.

*Singapore gets a mention!*
Forty years ago, Singaporeans were so poor that many children went to bed hungry each night. Singapore has virtually no natural resources, just the minds and energy of its 3 million citizens (circa 1999). Today, Singapore ranks among the top nations in the world in productivity and income, and students regularly occupy the number one slot in international comparisons.

On understanding:
An individual understands a concept, skill, theory or domain of knowledge to the extent that he or she can apply it appropriately in a new situation.

The more a person knows about how music and drama work, the more value they are likely to glean from a performance.

Lack of appreciation has no meaning if no effort has been made to understand.


Begin with entry points (compelling examples to lead in), offer analogies (bridging to current knowledge), and converge upon multiple representations of the core idea.