Came across this quote today from Socrates. I’m not sure if this was his opinion, or if he was explaining someone else’s opinion, but he clearly would have done well in the viral article world of social media. This excerpt from Phaedrus, could almost be an epic rant against electronics instead of an epic rant against books.
[Writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
In completely unrelated news, if you or someone you know is suffering from Saxon Math disease (the illness is best diagnosed by these symptoms: unfinished lessons, uncorrected lessons and general wailing and gnashing of teeth). A fellow math triage mom pointed me in the direction of mymathassistant.com and I can’t believe nobody told me about it sooner. It doesn’t replace the Saxon math books, but it gives your dear child a place to write down the answers. Unlike the real world where lessons may or may not get graded, the web service gives them instant feedback so they know whether they need to re-work the problem right then and there or move on to the next one (in the parent controls you can set how many attempts they’re allowed to have). At the end of the lesson, I get an email telling me how many were correct the first try etc. It’s like manna from heaven.
Work smarter, not harder…just don’t tell Socrates?