Education

One has to put the bread on the table.

I think college is basically for fun and to prove that you can do your chores, but they're not for learning

Mentava's software-based daily tutor gets students on track for college-level math and computer science before high school.

The pupils have a parents' evening coming up but instead of their teachers giving an account of their progress, it is a "student-led conference" at which they must present a portfolio of their work, explain what they are most proud of and discuss where they need to put in more effort.

The "real world" is full of people who couldn't make it in academia.

One of the world’s most cited scientists, Rafael Luque, suspended without pay for 13 years

The prolific chemist, who has published a study every 37 hours this year

Rafael Luque, has been suspended without pay for the next 13 years

How can I export tree data for my own analysis?

Registered users should contact the site administrator (admin at neurotree dot org) for instructions on how to export data from the tree database.

How do you identify researchers' publications?

Publications data are drawn from two databases: Medline and Scopus. Because of the large number of researchers with the same name, a disambiguation algorithm is required to accurately link researchers to papers they have authored. We match authors to papers using a two-step process. First, we identify candidate publications based on a simple string match between researcher name and the author list. Second, we look for overlap between co-authors and other individuals in the researcher's mentor network (trainees, mentors, collaborators, etc), and label publications with overlap as high-probability matches. Thus a complete family tree is likely to produce more accurate publication matches.

You cannot get educated by this self-propagating system in which people study to pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything.

You learn something by doing it yourself, by asking questions, by thinking, and by experimenting.

When do I get the solutions to the problems on the problem sets?

When you discover them for yourself: on your own or collaborating with other students. Returning students and counsellors and faculty will support and encourage you, but not by giving you the answers (hint: they don't even give hints). What PROMYS Europe does is offer you the tools and structure to enable you to be a creative mathematician.

What rules are there at PROMYS Europe?

They're mostly the ones you'd expect: don't do anything dangerous or illegal, don't divide by zero, don't even try to skip Friday Fun, and don't give anyone solutions to the problem sets (though collaboration is definitely OK).

During his childhood and adolescence, Freire ended up four grades behind, and his social life revolved around playing pick-up football with other poor children, from whom he claims to have learned a great deal. These experiences would shape his concerns for the poor and would help to construct his particular educational viewpoint. Freire stated that poverty and hunger severely affected his ability to learn. These experiences influenced his decision to dedicate his life to improving the lives of the poor: "I didn't understand anything because of my hunger. I wasn't dumb. It wasn't lack of interest. My social condition didn't allow me to have an education. Experience showed me once again the relationship between social class and knowledge"

it is not specifically about schooling but about the upbringing of a rich man’s son, Émile, by a tutor who is given unlimited authority over him. Rousseau’s aim throughout Émile is to show how a natural education, unlike the artificial and formal education of society, enables Émile to become social, moral, and rational while remaining true to his original nature

He learns a trade, among other things. He studies science, not by receiving instruction in its facts but by making the instruments necessary to solve scientific problems of a practical sort.

I do not consider these laughable establishments called Colleges as a public institution.

There are in several schools, and especially in the University of Paris, Professors whom I like, whom I esteem very much, and whom I believe very capable of instructing young people well, if they were not forced to follow established usage. I urge one of them to publish the reform project he designed. We will perhaps finally be tempted to cure the illness by seeing that it is not without a remedy.

Je n’envisage pas comme une institution publique ces risibles établissements qu’on appelle Colleges

Il y a dans plusieurs écoles, & surtout dans l’Université de Paris, des Professeurs que j’aime, que j’estime beaucoup, & que je crois très capables de bien instruire la jeunesse, s’ils n’étoient forcés de suivre l’usage établi. J’exhorte l’un d’entre eux à publier le projet de réforme qu’il a conçu. L’on sera peut-être enfin tenté de guérir le mal en voyant qu’il n’est pas sans remède.