Word: layzer
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Clearly, this isn't the traditional approach to dispensing wisdom about the subtle workings of nature. But Layzer says he is frustrated with such conventional methods, which he says encourage a rather narrow perception of science...
There's even a twist to the papers. Although prose is welcome, fiction and poetry are equally valid genres in Layzer's courses. One student this past semester wrote a story about a cookie-making contest, whose participants included Albert Einstein and other famous physicists...
...Virtually all of the difficulty comes from the fact that science and math are atrociously taught in school," Layzer says. "Most people come to Harvard with a view of science that is completely distorted. It is as if science has to do only with memorizing formulas. This is as if people were taught about art by painting by numbers, so that you've taken away spatial organization and made it a mindless assembly...
...Science is the outgrowth of questions about the world: it's about why some things are smooth, rough and hard, and others melt," Layzer continues. "The way it is taught today turns off many creative people who are best equipped to be serious students of science...
Despite this fundamental problem, Layzer claims he has a solution, although his remedy might come as a shock to the average secondary school chemistry or physics instructor...