Americans have been good at improvising for a long time, but in the last few decades, we have gotten very sloppy about the rote memorization of facts. That's a discipline issue. You need the rote skill in order to have something to improvise off of, otherwise you are simply playing air guitar.
John MedinaDon't start with the details. Start with the key ideas, and in a hierarchical fashion, form the details around these larger notions.
John MedinaEmpathy works so well because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding.
John MedinaA third or more of the brain is devoted to visual processing, not true of any other sense. We have color vision and it is truly binocular. This sophistication is not true of other senses, such as smell, where many genes are actually mutated and no longer work.
John MedinaAny education system that only memorizes things creates robots and will never produce Nobel laureates. Any education system that only emphasizes improvisation will get a bunch of people who may think they are creative, but they are functionally illiterate.
John MedinaEvery brain is wired differently from every other brain, and learns in ways unique to that wiring.
John MedinaIf you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to tear down both and start over.
John Medina