On the depths and shallows of knowledge

For those unfamiliar with him, Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize–winning physicist, an author of both technical and popular books and, last but not least, a legendary educator. In this post, I will dive into one of Feynman’s pedagogical principles: the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. I recommend hearing it from Feynman himself in this 1-minute video, in which he recites the names of a bird in several languages and then points out that he has still not demonstrated any knowledge about the bird itself.

This distinction is a powerful lens with which to view the modern pedagogical movement that decries memorization or emphasizing knowledge in favour of critical thinking skills. The importance of critical thinking skills is not contentious; that said, I believe knowledge is also essential, but it must be rooted in understanding rather than, as Feynman points out, just names. Our education system’s emphasis on names may have given knowledge a bad reputation. Let’s consider examples from two different domains, geography and biology. 

Capital of the Netherlands? Amsterdam. Capital of Japan? Tokyo. Capital of Venezuela? Caracas. Does this remind you of high school? This is a geography lesson in knowing names. Knowing these capital names is a nice-to-have, but not essential (it is also rather boring, and hence demotivating, for students). Students would benefit more from knowing facts like the relative sizes of these places, their respective importance in modern geopolitics, or the architectural marvels of these capital cities. Both are forms of knowledge, but the former is simply a matter of names or labels, while the latter is knowledge about the cities themselves – knowledge which paints a picture of these places and their unique characteristics. 

Biology is a classic memorization-heavy discipline in both high schools and universities. If you ask me what I learned in high school biology I might say, “Meiosis and mitosis are the two types of cell division, the pyloric sphincter is part of the digestive system, and plants make energy from sunlight via photosynthesis.” In short, names. What I would struggle to answer are questions like, “What were the evolutionary pressures that led to two distinct types of cell division?” or “What could go wrong in the human body if the pyloric sphincter were defective?” or “How does photosynthesis in a plant compare to the solar panel on my roof?” I learned names but lack an understanding of how it all fits together.

So, how does all this philosophizing manifest at VISST? As one example, our Science teacher Paloma Corvalan and our Grade 8 students recently studied the soda geyser phenomenon. Paloma recorded some student discussions, which you can view here. In the video, the students wonder whether the sugar in the Coke is necessary for the reaction (it isn’t!) and start inquiring about whether beer, which is quite foamy, contains sugar. The soda geyser is an example of a physical reaction rather than a chemical reaction. The students left class knowing this terminology, but much more importantly they know something about the phenomenon itself.

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