How to Get Inside a Student's Head
Steven Pinker,
New York Times,
Jan 31, 2003
Though Steven Pinker's track record commands respect, he is a little off the mark in this op-ed in the New York Times. Pinker first makes the observation that educators should rely more on empirical science, and in particular, cognitive science, behavioral genetics and evolutionary and developmental psychology. Fair enough and with minor caveats I support this statement. Yet in the very next paragraph he draws on insights offered by Jay Leno in order to offer a new approach to education: "instruction at all levels in relatively new fields like economics, evolutionary biology and statistics." Now I value learning in those fields. But should such learning replace the study of a foreign language or the classics, as Pinker suggests? I have my doubts. Perhaps we should wait for the, um, empirical studies.
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