'Fans and disciples of Seymour Sarason all know that education
reform needs a change in course. Indeed, the daily practices of
schools, education research, and US educational policy all need
such a change. Neither Professors Glazek and Sarason, nor anyone
else, can give yet a complete description of what these changes
would involve. But when the change happens, the leaders of the
change will all acknowledge their considerable debt to this book.
The reason is that the needed change in school classrooms will be
very hard to recognize as such unless these leaders are thoroughly
familiar with the concept of 'a context of productive learning.' In
this book, Glazek and Sarason collaborated on an extraordinarily
daunting attempt to create and analyze a context of productive
learning in which, simultaneously, Sarason was the student and
Glazek the teacher and vice versa. They attempted what must surely
be a 'Mt Everest' example of the concept: explanation of Einstein's
famous formula, E=mc(2).aThe result should be of intense interest
to a broad audience concerned with the present problems of science
education as well as the nature of a context of productive
learning.' -Kenneth G. Wilson, H. C. Youngberg Trustees
Distinguished Professor Nobel Laureate for Physics, 1982 Department
of Physics, The Ohio State University 'By making accessible and
intelligible Einstein's theory of relativity, this remarkable book
reveals to its readers the power and possibility of their own
learning and, in doing so, brilliantly demonstrates the power and
necessity of productive learning for everyone.' -Andy Hargreaves,
Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education Lynch School of Education,
Boston College 'Professors Glazek and Sarason have written a
creative and instructive book that will be read for years to come.
Drawing upon their backgrounds in physics and psychology, they
support EinsteinAEs recommendations as to the importance of the
humanities. The authors' purpose is to help readers acquire a
substantive grasp of how Einstein accomplished what he did and the
implications of this for educational reform. The reader's view of
teaching and learning will be forever changed by the authors'
insights.' -Dale L. Brubaker, Professor University of North
Carolina 'This is an interesting and provocative book, written by a
psychologist with several thousands of hours of observation and
analysis of classroom teaching in public schools and a physicist.
The book starts with a critique of teaching in our schools and
explains why educational reform has been so minimal in its effects.
The movie 'Mr. Holland's Opus' is used as a distinguisher between
good and bad teaching methodology. These chapters are followed by
physics chapters on the foundation of Einstein's E=mc|. The authors
follow Einstein's thinking and use the features of light as a
vehicle for their discussion. They fold in stories and shy away
from formulas, which they leave for appendices. The book ends with
a chapter on the philosophy of teaching. The book is well written
and eminently readable; the arguments are easy to follow. I
recommend the book to anyone interested in the basis of modern
physics and Einstein's role in it.' -Ernest M. Henley, Professor
Emeritus of Physics University of Washington Use the concept of
productive learning to reframe school reform!aWhy do people,
college-bound or even in college, stay away in droves from courses
in science, especially physics? Why do people know so little about
the significance of Einstein's contributions which require dramatic
changes in how we understand ourselves, our world, and the entire
universe? Why have educational reforms failed? In this book, two
professors, one a particle physicist and the other a psychologist,
confront these questions in a unique way based on the assumption
that people can grasp on a non-superficial level what Einstein did
in 1905 if, and only if, the features of productive learning are
taken seriously. The authors make clear that those features are
applicable in teaching any subject matter by devoting two chapters
to music and other arts. In the case of science, they chose
Einstein's work precisely because of the general belief that it
cannot be assimilated by 'ordinary mortals' whose brains are not
'wired' to comprehend the ways in which time, mass, energy, and the
speed of light are seamlessly interrelated. But this book is not an
attempt to popularize Einstein. Its goal is to demonstrate that
features of the context of productive learning are applicable to
any teacher-student relationship, regardless of whether the student
is in first grade, in high school, or in college. Einstein's work
was about alignment of frames of reference of observers in physics.
A similar process of alignment between the minds of a student and a
teacher is the vehicle of productive learning. The book explains
the analogy. The authors discuss and emphasize that educational
reform will continue to fail as long as the concept of learning is
fuzzy and provides no direction to the teacher-student
relationship. Reform efforts will continue to fail unless and until
they are based on a clear distinction between contexts of
productive and unproductive learning.
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