Most of what we learn...is false...it's true

To: C.W. and you
From: Mrs. Applebaume

I just attended one of those moments...the kind that don't wait.  I live near a college that has a Storytelling Festival.  Five minutes before a lecture by the professional storyteller Willy Claflin's began, I decided I had to go.  The subject was "Storytelling for Teachers".  I got there late, but I made it.


It was held in the basement of the Education Building.  I expected the room to be packed, but since it was during school hours, there were probably thirty of us. I would say three looked like shiny-eyed teachers-to-be.  


So, I scooted onto the back row and began to listen.  You know when someone is able to say something you have felt, but never made into a sentence?..made fact?...given voice to?  Well today Willy Claflin said my sentence.  

Everything we learn is not true.  All of those facts in science class that we memorized, we forgot. What's more, most of those facts have been disproved in the past thirty years.  So, our nation is now preoccupied with the testing and standardization of future falsehoods.

Mr. Claflin may not know it, but I was mentally spooning his pedagogy.   


So what does that leave a simple teacher to do?  Encourage creativity...but for now, I will simply glow.


"Imagination is more important than knowledge." ~ Albert Einstein