"My friend Bruce, recently retired from an executive position in the high-tech medical device industry, had been volunteering as a monthly reader at a local elementary school. The school chose books according to criteria such as relevance, clarity, and value of information, and the text assigned to Bruce was a picture book on insects. The book ended with a quiz, intended to test the students' recall. To the question, "Can ants fly?" each of the 5-year-old students in the room offered the same response: "No.""
"But then a little girl, one of the many students from poor families at the school, dressed this particular day in a pink princess outfit that might have once been a Halloween costume, spoke up, evidently embarrassed by the sound of her own still voice. "But I have seen wings on ants. Why can't they fly?" Bruce was stumped. Surely the little girl was wrong, and whatever winged species of insect she thought she had seen had not been an ant but something else, such as a termite."
Debate exists about whether education should promote economic productivity, ensure citizens follow a party-approved line, or cultivate loyalty to truth. A retired executive named Bruce volunteered as a monthly reader at an elementary school and read a picture book on insects. The book stated that ants cannot fly, and the five-year-old students answered "No" to the quiz question. A girl objected, saying she had seen wings on ants and asking why they could not fly. Bruce, a man of science, acknowledged uncertainty and committed to verify the claim instead of dismissing the child's observation. Education should therefore cultivate evidence-seeking and intellectual humility.
Read at Psychology Today
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