Productive Learning: Science, Art, and Einstein's Relativity in Educational Reform

Why do people, college-bound or even in college, stay away in droves from courses in science, especially physics? Why do people know so little about the significance of Einstein's contributions which require dramatic changes in how we understand ourselves, our world, and the entire universe? Why have educational reforms failed?

In this book, two professors, one a particle physicist and the other a psychologist, confront these questions in a unique way based on the assumption that people can grasp on a non-superficial level what Einstein did in 1905 if, and only if, the features of productive learning are taken seriously. The authors make clear that those features are applicable in teaching any subject matter by devoting two chapters to music and other arts. In the case of science, they chose Einstein's work precisely because of the general belief that it cannot be assimilated by "ordinary mortals" whose brains are not "wired" to comprehend the ways in which time, mass, energy, and the speed of light are seamlessly interrelated.

But this book is not an attempt to popularize Einstein. Its goal is to demonstrate that features of the context of productive learning are applicable to any teacher-student relationship, regardless of whether the student is in first grade, in high school, or in college. Einstein's work was about alignment of frames of reference of observers in physics. A similar process of alignment between the minds of a student and a teacher is the vehicle of productive learning. The book explains the analogy.

The authors discuss and emphasize that educational reform will continue to fail as long as the concept of learning is fuzzy and provides no direction to the teacher-student relationship. Reform efforts will continue to fail unless and until they are based on a clear distinction between contexts of productive and unproductive learning.

This unique resource promotes the creation of productive learning contexts, which allow students to bring all that they are to the learning process, as essential to successful educational reform.

Seymour B. Sarason is Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Yale University. During his distinguished 48-year career, he has been one of the most astute observers and incisive critics of efforts to reform our schools. Among his more than 30 published books are The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform (1990), Schooling in America: Scapegoat or Salvation (1983), and The Culture of School and the Problem of Change (2nd ed., 1982).