Re-Schooling—or Human Sabotage?

Silver Members - Listen to Audio Version

We say we want children to grow to self-responsible, creative problem-solving adults. But in schooling kids, do we follow through on that?

Here’s a positive example of creative problem-solving.

Barry Marshall suspected that a bacterium caused stomach ulcers. But he was merely a junior faculty researcher, and the medical establishment believed strongly that ulcers were caused by acids from poor diets or stress.

Marshall likes to quote historian Daniel Boorstin: “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.” So Marshall’s eccentric hypothesis met with resistance, and he realized his prospects for getting a research grant for it were non-existent.