Three Cups of Tea: Book Review

Three Cups of Tea
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

I read this book hoping to be inspired as I was when I read Mountains Upon Mountains. In truth, I liked Mountains better; however Three Cups of Tea was still good. I won’t summarize the plot, visiting their website will give you the basic idea of it.

One thing that I found particularly interesting was that in 1993 Greg Mortenson was just a regular guy. He didn’t have a Bachelor’s degree, he wasn’t rich; he didn’t even know how to use a computer! But he had a determination to fulfill a promise he made to build schools in Pakistan.

Comparing the resources I have now with what Greg had in 1993, it seems that I certainly could (and should) make a bigger difference in the world.

I confess being troubled somewhat at the price Greg had to pay in leaving his family so often. It seems that his wife was cool with it though, and that is the most important thing.

My favorite part—the pictures that are included in the book. After reading about Mouzafer Ali, Haji Ali, and Jahan to see their pictures brought tears to my eyes as I realized once again how very similar the peoples of the world are.

Book Review: Rapid Instructional Design

Rapid Instructional Design by George M. Piskurich

One of the key takeaways from the book is that in order to have good instructional design you need to do extensive analysis before you begin. What are the people like for whom you are designing the training? Why are they taking your training? What are their needs? Discussing this pre-design information gathering was the subject of about ¼ of the book. Interviews, questionnaires and other resources can be helpful in gathering this information. He states, “The last question I always ask [in interviews] is ‘Is there anything that you are surprised that I did not ask about?’” I use this question or a variation of it no matter what the purpose of the interview is” (55). Seems like good advice.

An impatient designer (like me) doesn’t want to do the pre-work he describes. Nor do I want to do the beta tests that he recommends to find out if the training is really hitting the mark. I was convinced after reading his book that if I’m serious about producing training that will often be reused and bring quality results (and not all training is going to be used multiple times, thereby needing extra rigor) that beta tests and pre-design research are critical.

In addition, you should evaluate the course if you plan to reuse the training. Simple evaluations could be to ask four simple questions:

1. Rate this class on a scale of 1 to 5
2. State the one thing you liked best about the class
3. State the one thing you would most like to change about the class
4. What do you think was the most important thing you learned from the class?

On pages 198-201 he had a nice list of teaching activities. Some that I liked were:

• Getting anonymous questions from participants
• Have trainees critique a demonstration
• Panels
• Role reversal role play—in which the players assume the roles of others with whom they normally interact on the job.

Page 259 had a handy list of tips for facilitators like,

Overprepare
Observe others as they facilitate and take notes on what they do that works.
Use name tags and name tents
Memorize your instructional content
Start and stop on time
Use nonbreak breaks, like throwing a ball, stretching, or mind relaxers
Everybody likes prizes
Candy breaks, particularly in the afternoon, are real energizers.

Overall I liked this book. I felt that if I didn’t have access to the Internet to help solve specific problems that it would be a resource I would want to continually look at. One weakness of the book was that the e-learning sections felt that they were eight years old (although the copyright shows 2006).

Book Review: The mind and the brain

The Mind and The Brain

By Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. and Sharon Begley

This book was recommended to me by Russell Osguthorpe, author of Choose to Learn. I thought it was fascinating.

Schwartz begins by talking about his treatment of people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Since I mildly manifest some OCD symptoms this was especially interesting to me. One of his keys points is that contrary to the belief that we are controlled by our genes, and basically predestined to certain outcomes, we have the power to make choices not only to override these predispositions, but to actually alter the composition of our brains. (For a quick and interesting read on this topic, see "Does Thinking Make It So" published in the most recent Harvard magazine).

Schwartz weaves the stories of several scientists and their experiments to show this thesis to be correct. One of his key ideas for changing the way our mind has to do with Buddhist practices of meditation. The four steps he suggests are to “Relabel their obsessions and compulsions as false signals, symptoms of a disease, they reattribute those thoughts and urges to pathological brain circuitry (“This thought reflects a malfunction of my brain, not a real need to wash my hands yet again”). They refocus, turning their attention away from the pathological thoughts and urges onto a constructive behavior. And, finally, they revalue the OCD obsessions and compulsions, realizing that they have no intrinsic value, and no inherent power” (14). [see end of this review for more on these “re’s”.]

Schwartz’s story of how he developed this theory is quite interesting. Previous treatments of OCD seemed quite strange (forcing people to do the behaviors that they hated) and the cure rate was very low. Piece by piece he put these four keys together and eventually began using them in therapy with great success. In fact he showed that there was substantially decreased metabolic activity in that part of the brain that is overactive in OCD patients. He stated that “This was the first study ever to show that cognitive-behavior therapy—or, indeed, any psychiatric treatment that did not rely on drugs—has the power to change faulty brain chemistry in a well-identified brain circuit” (90).

A corollary of this finding is that the brain remains subject to change and grow, not just in childhood, but throughout life. Additional evidence to demonstrate this comes from the Silver Spring Monkeys. A researcher named Taub experimented on these monkeys by altering a small part of their brain making one of their limbs unusable. Then he put the good limb in a straitjacket forcing the monkey to use the arm that it thought was useless. In time, the monkey was able to use the “useless” arm. In other words, the brain was able to become active and have other parts of the brain learn how to control its arm. This work with monkeys was later applied to stroke patients, and many were able to regain use of limbs that they thought they would never be able to use again. Taub says, “If a stroke knocks out your Broca’s region, I am suggesting, you can in effect grow a new Brocas’ region” (196).

Another interesting finding reported by Schwartz is that mental activity can have the same effect on the brain as physical activity. “Pascual-Leone…[had] one group of volunteers practice a five-finger exercise, and a comparable group merely think about practicing it. They focused on each finer in turn, essentially playing the simple piece in their hands, one note at a time. Actual physical practice produced changes in each volunteer’s motor cortex, as expected. But so did mere mental rehearsal, and to the same degree as that brought about by physical practice…merely thinking about moving produced brain changes comparable to those triggered by actually moving” (217). This shows that the mental processes of relabeling and so forth that Schwartz described have the potential to actually change the physical structure of the brain. This was also related to how dyslexia (Fast ForWord) and Tourette’s might be treated.

The part of the book that caused Dr. Osguthorpe to recommend it to me was the final third which focuses on volition. “Mental force acts on the physical brain by amplifying the newly emerging brain circuitry responsible for healthy behavior and quieting the OCD circuit” (295). In simple terms, you are not controlled by your genes or your brain. The things you do and think about can literally reconfigure your brain.

One insight that I found particularly interesting as a teacher was that we can choose what we pay attention to, and that the things we pay attention to changes the way our brain works. “Attention to shape and color pumps up the volume of neuronal activity in the region of the visual cortex that processes information about shape and color…in people, paying attention to faces turns up activity in the region whose job it is to scan and analyze faces” (329).

So when I as a teacher say something like, “Students read verse 8 and look for…” I am helping to focus their attention on a certain point. This will fire up certain neurons and brain activity in a way that would not happen if they were reading without looking for something specific. “The way an individual willfully focuses attention has systematic effects on brain function, amplifying activity in particular brain circuits” (334).

So the implication for me as a person trying to become better is that by choosing to pay attention to certain things, or looking for certain things I can literally change my brain. Perhaps “looking for the positive” actually changes neurons in my brain and helps me to be a happier person. As a teacher I can work carefully to help focus students’ attention in meaningful ways.

[More specifics on the “re’s.]:

Speaking of what he came to term relabeling he said, “To register mentally the arrival of each and every OCD obsession and compulsion, and to identify each as a thought or urge with little or no basis in reality, would require significant, willful effort. It would not be sufficient just to acknowledge superficially the arrival of such a symptom. Such superficial awareness is essentially automatic, even (almost) unconscious. Mindful awareness, in contrast, comes about only with conscious effort. It is the difference between an off0handed “Ah, here’s that feeling that I have to count cans again,” and the insight “My brain is generating another obsessive thought. What does it feel like? How am I responding? Does the feeling make sense? Don’t I in fact know it to be false?” (78).

On reattribution: “Relabeling and reattributing reinforce each other…by reattributing their symptoms to a brain glitch, the patients recognize that an obsessive thought is, in a sense, not “real” but, rather, mental noise, a barrage of false signals. This improves patients’ ability not to take the OCD thoughts at face value” (82).

For refocus he “developed a ‘fifteen minute rule.’ The patient had to use an ‘active delay’ of at least fifteen minutes before performing any compulsive act. Setting a finite length of time to resist giving in seems to help patients…the fifteen minutes should not be just a passive waiting period, however. Rather it must be a period of mindful adaptive activity intended to activate new brain circuitry, with the goal of pursuing the alternative activity for a minimum of fifteen minutes. This seems to be the length of time generally needed for most patients’ OCD urges to diminish noticeably” (84). “When patients changed the focus of their attention…the brain might change too” (85). “Refocusing is the step that, more than any other, produces changes in the brain” (86).

“Revalue is a deep form of relabeling. Anyone whose grasp of reality is reasonably intact can learn to blame OCD symptoms on a medical condition. But such relabeling is superficial, leading to no diminution of symptoms or improved ability to cope….revaluing went deeper” (87) “…[it] means seeing matters as they really are” (88).

Good stuff…I should practice it! :)

Here Comes Everybody: Book Review

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

Special thanks to Cahlan Sharp for originally recommending this book, and SaraJoy Pond for loaning me her copy. Shirky starts off with an interesting tale of a woman named Ivanna who lost her phone. Turns out it was stolen, but her friend Evan using new media brought the situation to the public’s attention and eventually the phone was returned. The full story can be read here.

What makes the story so incredible is that it could not have happened ten years ago. Media outlets would not have picked up the story and there would have been no way to get the NYPD to pay attention to Evan’s claims. One key lesson is that new media allows groups to be formed (and dissolved) more easily and rapidly than ever before.

Shirky introduces chapter two by discussing the Birthday Paradox. Shirky uses this paradox to point out that he more people involved in a community, it become exponentially more complex. This creates organizational challenges, and in fact it is extremely difficult to force large groups of people to organize. But new media tools allow people who want to organize to do so fairly easily. He points out that using Flickr groups of people who do not know each other can easily pool together their pictures of a specific event.

These tools break down barriers that have existed for a long time. Now a woman living in Thailand can blog and post pictures about a military coup and get more press time than a report for the New York Times. People can easily create and distribute books, music and movies. As available content proliferates how this content is annotated, or tagged will become increasingly important.

One thesis of the book is that the ability to coordinate is power. There are several examples, such as using facebook to force a bank to change its policy towards students, using new media to protest the Catholic church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations, complaining about airline treatment, and so forth.

Shirky uses The Prisoner’s Dilemma to illustrate the importance of trust. And there are plenty of tools that allow people to build trusting relationships even though they never meet face to face. This allows people to meet and work together in new ways.

So what does all this mean? Well, if you are trying to change the world, you had better tap into the power of the masses. Shirky states that “Caterina Fake, one of the founders of Flickr, said she’d learned from the early days that ‘you have to greet the first ten thousand users personally’” (264). It takes effort to create a space (like Wikipedia, or Linux) where people will want to contribute to a project. The simplest promise to make to contributors to whatever you are creating is that if you help build this _____ it will improve.

Shirky concludes by tell of technology pioneer Aldus Manutius, who is 1501 began publishing books in a size small enough to easily fit into a man’s bag. Shirky writes, “Rather than either lamenting the influence of the [printing] press or continually marveling at its initial usefulness, he took it on himself to make an improvement that seems obvious in retrospect but that was at the time a small revolution extending the big revolution of moveable type” (302-303). The challenge for us then is to follow in his footsteps in our day.

The Book of Learning and Forgetting: Book Review

The Book of Learning and Forgetting by Frank Smith

Charles Swift recommended I read this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me of the writings of Eleanor Duckworth. If I were forced to summarize the book in a few sentences I would say that Dr. Smith’s view of learning is very similar to that articulated by Lave and Wenger of forming communities of practice. Smith states that basically you learn by the company you keep. It is by being with people who do certain things, and participating with them that you learn to do those things. As a case in point, my brother-in-law is in dental school. About 80% of his school time is spent in a dentist office where he works on people’s teeth, under the watchful care of a licensed dentist. He is learning by participating in the activity and associating with others who do it.

Smith uses a “club” metaphor for this—stating that a good way to think about learning is to join a club. It’s voluntary, you’re with other people who share the same interest, and you work together. A less-effective way to learn Chinese—copy characters and use brute memorization force. More effective—join a Chinese club with native speakers and practice speaking with them.

Smith points out that people learn an enormous amount of information without formal schooling. One of his major points is language acquisition. Third grade children learn on average 3,500 words per year just from naturally living life. That would be like learning ten new vocabulary words per day—but everybody knows how easily vocabulary words are forgotten. Because these children aren’t forcing themselves to memorize these new words they are likely more easily remembered.

Smith states that learning that is hard, intentional, based on rewards or punishments, assured by testing, etc. is learning that will soon be forgotten and is not, in the classical sense, true learning.

If you want to teach your children to read, read to them. Don’t worry that you are crippling them by reading for them, as soon as they are able they will start reading, because kids want to do things for themselves. Don’t worry if your kids like to read the same books over and over again, or if they are reading books that are “too easy.” This is part of joining and feeling a part of “the literacy club.”

Smiths rips into researchers such as Ebbinghaus stating that our whole theory of learning is based on memorizing (and forgetting) nonsense syllables, and creating learning systems that work well for the military, but not for creating true learning. Behaviorism and testing also get the cold shoulder.

Sadly, I felt that Smith was describing some of my tests when he said, “Memorization is emphasized, the inevitable forgetting is ignored, and no attention at all is paid to what students actually and permanently learn about themselves and education” (65).

The challenge I grapple with at the end of the book is, if I throw out my tests, how can I realistically tell what students are learning. Smith states that if students are engaged in activities and don’t seem bored or confused that they are learning. But how can this be realistically determined? I truly want my students to join a “club” so to speak as they participate in my class and become in their own ways scholars of the Book of Mormon with an ability to think and write about it. I want them to be able to find new insights from the text and effectively share those with others. But how to measure it?

Real Love in Parenting: Book Review

I recently finished the book Real Love in Parenting, by Greg Baer, M.D. It came highly recommended from several of my aunts, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The following is a summary of the ten chapters of the book.

The First Principle of Parenting: More than anything else, my child needs to feel loved

Just like plants die when they are not watered, children act badly when they are not loved. What children need is real love—not imitation love. Analogy—if you have a ten minute conversation with a person and for nine minutes they are loving and kind, but for the last minute they yell and scream at you, what will you remember? The one minute. Even if we are loving towards our children 90% of the time, sadly, they will remember the one 10%. Needs to be closer to 99.9%! If you are angry or not loving towards you child it is because you do not feel enough real love yourself.

Analogy—imagine that you are hungry and only have $2.00 left to buy food. I come in and steal your $2.00. How do you feel? You are probably very angry. But what if you have 1,000,000,000 dollars and I come in and take two. How do you feel? Not mad at all. So it isn’t me stealing $2.00 that makes you angry, it is that you only have $2.00. Similarly, when our children are yelling and arguing, that isn’t what makes us angry, it is that we do not have enough love, patience or other resources to deal with the problem.

The Second Principle of Parenting: When my child behaves badly, he or she does not feel loved

There are many ways that we show imitation love to our children. Any time it is about me as the parent it is probably imitation love. For example, I am often guilty of this with doing activities with the kids. A lot of the activities are really things I want to do, as opposed to things I do unconditionally for them. When our children are angry, hit, cling, whine, etc. it is a sign that they don’t feel loved.

Analogy: you are at a pool giving a speech. Somebody from the pool splashes you. Once. Twice. A third time. You are getting angry. You turn to yell at the person and see that it is a person who is drowning. Does your perspective change? Of course…when your kids are exhibiting bad behaviors it’s like they are drowning and trying to let you know.

The Third Principle of Parenting: When I’m angry, I’m wrong.

When you are angry you feel bad and your child feels bad. What does it teach children if we yell at them? We typically get angry because we are empty, we’re afraid of losing control, we’re worried about how their behavior inconveniences us, or makes us look bad. These are all essentially selfish behaviors.

Analogy: If behavior “causes” you to become angry, but another person is not angered by the behavior, this is proof that the behavior does not cause anger.

Analogy: Suppose your child breaks your camera, which “makes” you angry. Then your mother gives you one million dollars. Would that make you less angry? Yes, you say. And then we could say, “if the million dollars would make your anger go away, then the cause of your anger is not the broken camera, but your lack of one million dollars.”

Children do need to be taught manners, and to respect and honor their parents. What we need to do is make sure we are teaching them for their benefit and not to fulfill some need that we as parents have.

Five steps to eliminate anger: 1. Be quiet. 2. Be wrong—acknowledge that simply because you are angry, you are in the wrong. 3. Feel loved (remember the love that the Savior and others have for you). 4. Get loved (reach out to adults who can express real love to you). 5. Love and serve others.

The Fourth Principle of Parenting: I can’t give what I don’t have—I must find real love for myself

You have to have real love for yourself. Four keys to find unconditional love are 1. feel the desire to change. Tell the truth about yourself. Exercise faith. Give up your getting and protecting behaviors. Tell the truth about yourself means to state that at times you are selfish, or focused more on you than your kids. As you acknowledge the truth you create opportunities for people to see you as you really are, accept you and love you. You don’t go to your kids seeking this love but to “wise men and women” who have real love to give you. Telling the truth means many things…For example, “how many times do I have to tell you…” means “I can’t believe you’re so stupid, but you must be, or I wouldn’t have to keep telling you the same things over and over. If I were more loving I would teach you this lesson as many times as it takes, but my life is so empty and unhappy that if everything around me doesn’t go smoothly, I get upset and angry” (106). “Be quiet” means, “I’m so selfish, intolerant and controlling that I can’t live with the noises that all children make at your age.” “Can’t you hold still?” maeans “stop moving around and acting your age. Behave like and adult” (107).

The Fifth Principle of Parenting: My child needs to be loved and taught.

Sometimes what we should do is teach our children to tell the truth about themselves and their motives by 1. telling the truth about ourselves, 2. loving them when they tell the truth about themselves and 3. telling them the truth about themselves. So when kids are arguing you could say something like, “What we all really want most is to be happy, isn’t it? Everythnig we do is worthless if we’re not happy…there’s a lot of quarreling and irritation, which means people aren’t happy. Lately’ I’ve been doing some studying…and I’ve been learning that most of the unhappiness in our family is my fault. As a mother I’ve been making some huge mistakes…think about all the times I’ve been irritated with you when you didn’t do what I wanted….did you like that? You had it when I’m angry at you, because when I’m angry, I’m thinking of myself, not you” (130). By telling the truths about ourselves it helps our children to see that when we got angry at them it was not a manifestation of lack of love towards them, but that we are acknowledging that it was our own problem. You don’t tell children about your mistakes to get love from them, but rather to help them see the past differently, to give them an example of being truthful and to help them feel your love for them.

It’s important to love children even when they make mistakes. “Children judge whether we really love them according to how we treat them when they’re behaving badly. The absence of disappointment and anger when they’re ‘bad’ is the only kind of love that counts” (138).

Express love to your children by looking at them and giving them your full attention.

Some rules that can be helpful in arguments: 1. One speaker at a time. 2. Whoever speaks first is the speaker. 3. the speaker can only talk about their own feelings, not what others did or did not do.

When you need to correct a child, show genuine love—you have to really tell them the feeling, and tell them the truth. For example to a little boy who ate the last cookie help him see that he feels selfish and not as happy as in times past when he has shared.

The Sixth Principle of Parenting: After my child has been loved and taught, he or she needs to be loved and taught again

When children get angry, see accept and love your children. Teach them about real love and discuss the effects of anger on happiness. Teach them alternative ways to behave and at times impose consequences.

With respect to “time out” it should only be to accomplish a specific purpose to allow them to cool off. It isn’t a punishment but an opportunity to learn something, and a loving invitation is giving to come back as soon as they can kindly be a part of the family.

Keys to preventing anger, clinging, etc. love our children unconditionally, teach them to responsible and loving, establish clear rules, consistently apply consequences, learn how to say no, be grateful when your children are loving.

When praising children, frame it in loving and teaching. You don’t want to say that you are good person, but rather when you did such and such a thing you felt good. E.g. What did you do differently to have things work out so well? What did you learn from this?

The Seventh Principle of Parenting: The law of Choice.

“The most important principle in relationships is the Law of Choice: We all have the right to choose what we say and do” (262). If you feel disappointed and/or angry with your kids it’s probably a sign that you are limiting their choices for your own convenience, and not for their benefit. When possible let children make their own choices and suffer from (or be rewarded by) the natural consequences. For example, remember the purpose behind the requirement. Cleaning your room is important to teach responsibility and so that your kids can find stuff when it’s time to get dressed in the morning or go to bed at night.

The Eighth Principle of Parenting: Happiness comes from being loving.

When your children are fighting see and love them. Talk to them. How do you feel when you’re fighting? We’ve talked before about how when we are angry we aren’t feeling loved. What is happening that is having it be so that you don’t feel loved. Help your children see the truth, that when they are fighting over a toy they are being selfish.

You don’t have to be a doormat to be loving. You can teach your children about setting limits. He gives an example of a sibling always taking another sibling’s bike, and then helping that kid get a lock for his bike so his sibling wouldn’t always take it.

Two keys of success in relationships are 1. tell the truth about yourself. 2. Never expect any one person or group of people to love you. The only way you can make a difference is to change yourself, not blame or worry about what others are doing, because you cannot control those things.

The Ninth Principle of Parenting: Happiness Comes From Being Responsible

This chapter was similar to Merilee Boyack’s book on teaching children responsibility. Have meetings to discuss chores, give children choices where possible and set up assignments and deadlines with everybody’s agreement. Also suggests having one-on-one interviews with your children.

But What About…

This chapter covers various scenarios like “what if the kids are fighting” “what if they don’t go to bed…” etc. Most of the solutions were pretty common sense and in harmony with what I’ve read in other parenting books. One part that I thought was interesting was what he taught about “teaching children about sex” and how similar it was to what church leaders have taught.

“In the absence of real love…many of us use sex as a tool to create happiness and that never works out…The biggest reason young people experiment with sex is that they’re not happy. They’re looking for anything that will make them feel less unloved, powerless and alone” (392, 393).

As far as “what is the line of how far you should go” he gives an analogy of driving down a mountain and staying as far away from the edge as possible. Elder Boyd K. Packer taught something similar. He also states, “I suggest that children not be allowed to date before age sixteen” (398). Also, “Steady dating…encourages intimacy that children are not emotionally prepared for. Exclusive dating is therefore unwise until people are prepared for a committed, mutually loving relationship, like marriage” (398).

Book Review: The Future of Ideas

Book Review

The Future of Ideas
By Lawrence Lessig

One of the things about this book that I really value about this book is that it is free. You can read it in its entirety or download it at http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/download/ I think it is pretty cool that an esteemed author such as Dr. Lessig is willing to put his whole work out there to be read and revised as the world sees fit.

Lessig describes an interesting interview he had with (I believe) the head of the RIAA who accused him of being a hypocrite because he was selling his book. Lessig has shown that he is not a hypocrite by releasing his book to the public for free. Will Hollywood follow? Doubtful.

In this book Lessig explores the evolution Internet and how it is a resource that has dramatically altered our society in many ways. He also shows how if we are not careful the freedoms provided by the Internet can be controlled and underutilized to meet the needs of big business and/or other stakeholders whose interest is not the common good.

A theme in the book is the “tragedy of the commons” and Lessig shows various scenarios in which this tragedy does and does not apply. For example, he argues that bandwidth is does not fall in this category because there is an inexhaustible amount of it (although it may currently be untapped).

Although this book was written in 2001, there are still many theoretical nuggets that are valid today, though I was glad to see that some of the more dire predictions have not come to pass (yet).

Lessig suggests many creative solutions to problems we face that should be considered. He strongly feels that the patent office is out of touch and that a radical overhaul is needed as to how long patents can be enforced, and under what conditions.

In this short review I have not done justice to the ideas in this book. But to be brief, I will state my three biggest takeaways.

1. Patents should offer some limited protection, but our current law gives patents that are WAY too long.

2. Control is not necessarily bad, but we need to think carefully about how it is used.

3. Innovation is key to continued growth, and openness is a key to innovation.

Musings on the Social Life of Information

Today I read a chapter by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid in their book The Social Life of Information that I wanted to comment on. They talk about the difference between “know that” and “know how.” “Know that” refers to learning about facts, data and information. “Know how” is how to do something. And “we learn how by practice” (quoting Ryle, 128).

Brown and Duguid quote from Lave and Wenger describing how communities of practice add to “know how.” They describe different settings in which newcomers were able to associate with expert practitioners and learn from them. They also describe how situated learning is more effective than learning out of context. Using an example of learning how to speak by reading, listening and talking as opposed to looking up new words in a dictionary they found the former to be much more effective.

To lampoon the “know that” crowd they quote from Hard Times in which Gradgrind states, “Teach these boys nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing less and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts…Stick to Facts, Sir” (135).

Using the metaphor of “supply and demand” Brown and Duguid point out that although we often think of teaching and learning stemming from supply (finding somebody who can teach us), the more critical part is the “demand” that students have to learn. If one really wants to learn, it will make all the difference.