While preparing for teaching US Lit next year, I came across an essay by Einstein (actually a talk, I think) from 1936. It was superb–I think this, of course, because it expresses many thoughts I have independently come to embrace about education. I used a few quotes from it in my Summer Spark talk today. Although I have vastly more experience than Einstein as a teacher, he has an unmeasurably greater and wider reputation than I, so in the hope that if you are tired of listening to me, you’ll pay some attention to him, here are the excerpts from his speech that I used today.
Einstein (1936):
o The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service of the community their highest life problem….
o 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.
o 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. In the awakening and strengthening of these psychological forces in the student is the most important task given by the school.
o I have said nothing yet about the choice of subjects for instruction nor about the method of teaching. In my opinion, all this is of secondary importance. ‘Education is what remains if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.’ The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.