Teachers should teach nothing.
Students should learn nothing.
Students should know nothing.

Nothing is worth teaching.
Nothing is worth learning.

Nothing is worth contemplating.
Nothing is worth our attention.
Nothing is worth our time.
Nothing is worth our energy.

Students should view nothing and listen to nothing.
Students should be tested on nothing.
Students should be accountable for nothing.

Schools should focus on nothing.
Schools should make nothing a priority.

Nothing is important in education.
Nothing matters in education.
Nothing matters.

Nothing matters . . . . . . .

. . . .a lot.

First Light

Schoolman's head reared in the dark room, astonished at Muse's reply. He had spent all this time and energy to get this answer? Schoolman meets Muse

"Wait a minute! " Schoolman exclaimed. "What are you talking about? Why, certainly we want our children to learn something. What are we in business for? There are many important things out there our children should know. There are so many things out there we need to teach them. Don't give me this foolishness! Learning nothing? Now what kind of talk is that?"

Muse smiled an eerie, translucent smile."Well, just what is it you want your children to know?"

Schoolman thought carefully."Of course there is some disagreement on exactly what we want our children to know. But," he quickly added, "there is an awful lot that matters."

Schoolman's voice rose in volume as he continued. "Ask any literate minded person. There is the history of civilization. There is science and all of its developments. There is mathematics. There is reading, and literature, and poetry. There are the arts. There are languages. There is grammar. There is spelling. There are the great books of mankind. . There is a whole body of knowledge one needs to participate in our society. There are indeed so many things to learn. We educators cannot play flippant games about this. This is serious business."

"Serious business? Hmm," Muse pondered. "Let me tell you a story.

"In the beginning," Muse began, "was the void,......the darkness. There was.......nothing.
"There was nothing in our minds. We were conscious of nothing. It looked something like this...."

Blank picture of
Nothing.

Schoolman gazed into the darkness.

"Then, there was a concept," Muse continued. "It looked something like this...."
A small golden, glowing sphere appeared from nowhere.
Small glowing sphere

Muse continued to speak. "Then there was another concept. It resembled the first in some ways, but it was certainly different. The two of them looked something like this:

Two glowing
spheres

The two spheres slowly orbited each other, the blue-green one slightly above the first.
"Now, when people started forming concepts," said Muse, "or shortly thereafter, they didn't just leave them alone. They related them. Now things began to look like this:"
Two spheres with rod
between.

Muse floated to within a foot or two of the spheres, passing a hand through the luminescent rod which had recently joined them. "People liked this concept forming thing. They liked it so much they formed some more."
Slowly, one by one, a constellation of small shapes began to fill the space between Schoolman and Muse.
Constellation of shapes

Muse gestured as more rods grew between the mysterious objects, "And they related them.
"Sooner or later there was a whole host of concepts and relationships.

The formation was filling the room by this time, growing in it's complexity. Muse drifted in and out of the shapes and continued to talk. "We called this organization of concepts and relationships 'knowledge'. Knowledge of food , perhaps. Or of warmth. We might have formed knowledge of our shelter, and how to secure it." As Muse named each of these ideas, a different subsection of the formation glowed more intensely.
Twinkling formation.

"And then there was more formal knowledge. Here is mathematics and its concepts and relationships."
Another set glowed.

"Here is science, its concepts and relationships. "Here is the concept of 'tree', and 'leaf', and 'sunlight', and 'earth'. Here is history. Here are the great poems of mankind."
Muse spoke rapidly and her excitement was echoed by a twinkling effect among various portions of the formation.
"Here are the great ideas of mankind. Here is democracy'. Here are languages. Here is 'justice'. Here is . . . well," and she paused, "everything we know."

Schoolman's eyes showed bewilderment. He started slowly, "I don't get it. I mean, we should know those things. That's what we need to teach our children!"

"This knowledge is good," Muse replied. "This knowledge helps us live in a better world. Students should be taught these things."

"Wait a minute," Schoolman interjected. "You said earlier that students should be taught nothing."

"That is correct," said Muse. "Students should be taught nothing. Let me proceed."
Muse went on, "The problem is that because our children are so valuable, we want to leave out nothing and teach them everything we can."

Second Sight

"And what is wrong with that?" asked Schoolman. "Isn't that what a good education would be?"

Muse's eyes were now brighter than any of the strange little shapes which illuminated the room. "Not good enough", she said. "Teaching students everything we can is insufficient. Even if we could teach them everything, we would not be doing enough. The other half of the job is to teach them nothing.

"You see, in our zeal to teach everything, we concentrate on these ideas," and she waved her hand at the formation. "They are good ideas. But at the same time, they are just ideas somebody else made up. Certainly it is worthwhile to learn someone else's good ideas. But is not the same as creating good ideas. Learning the relationship between things is not the same as relating things.

"The people who made up mathematics , grammar, and history and the other great ideas did not do so by spending all of their time learning some-things. They spent at least a significant part of their time experiencing what they had not yet learned -- what no one had learned -- what was not yet a thing -- what was not yet a concept -- what was not yet a relationship --what was no-thing!

"I'll grant you that they spent time learning the known, and in most cases were probably well versed in the somethings that were known. They studied the first concepts, and made up ways to organize them. They studied the ideas that someone had made up before. They studied the relationships someone had made up before. They studied the rules that someone had made up for making up new ideas and relationships.

"But in each case, in order to make up better ideas, what they really embraced was the unknown . . . the nothing. Therein lies the passion for education. Students need the wonder, awe, and delight which comes from the adventure of confronting the unknown, unfettered by knowledge and common sense. Then learning is wonderful, awesome, and, delightful.

"But we are afraid to look beyond the paradigm. Students, teachers, the community, and parents, are very uncomfortable with the unknown. How embarrassing when a student asks a teacher a question the teacher does not know. How uncomfortable we feel with 'I don't know', when stumped by a question, or in real-life situations. We are reinforced for embracing the known and filling up on it. It's value is known. But we are not reinforced for embracing the unknown... the nothing... for the value is uncertain, risky, and possibly a waste of time.

"It may not be as certain, but therein lies the potential for our future. Potential does not exist in what is, but in what is not. Potential doesn't exist in something; it exists in nothing.

"Nothing is exciting. Nothing is worth embracing. Nothing is wonderful. Nothing does matter in education. Nothing matters a lot."

Future Flight

Muse and the constellation of glowing shapes vanished. Schoolman sat in the darkness for a while before he began to write.

I believe schools should convey to students a passion for learning.

I believe learning should focus on something and on nothing.

I believe that if learning focuses on nothing, the awe and wonder therein supplies an intrinsic passion and motivation to sustain further learning. If it focuses only on the known, it is boring and stagnant, and requires extrinsic motivation.

I believe that if students find this passion and motivation, they will become lifelong learners naturally.

I believe the unknown, and hence, the passionate force, lies more often in activities that involve constructing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, thinking, creating, questioning, generating, composing, observing, discussing, relating, and symbolizing.

I believe the unknown will not often be found in calculating, spelling, listing, recalling, defining, and memorizing.

I believe the unknown lies more often in open ended questions. There is no unknown in "right answers".

I believe the unknown lies more in real experiences than in textbook practice exercises.

I believe that parents, publics, teachers, administrators, and students must become comfortable with this unknown in order to experience its dynamics. You don't get the thrill of exploring if you're afraid to leave home.

I believe those who are comfortable with exploring the unknown must model for those who are not.

I believe teacher education systems, staff development, and supervisory systems must facilitate exploration.

I believe educators must be permitted to fail. Accountability, although important, must not impinge on this. The unknown is risky, but the known is deadlocked. And in today's world, that is even riskier.

I believe students should enjoy our vast wealth of knowledge as tools and platforms that may enable them to reach far into the unknown.

I believe a good curriculum leads students beyond itself.

I believe in a balance of activities which allows students the experience of living other people's ideas and living their own ideas. They need to see and learn how concepts are related, but they also need to relate concepts in new ways. We need a balance of both.

Schoolman was excited. "I understand," he thought to himself. "Muse is right. Nothing is so simple, but so easily overlooked.

"This gives me more direction. This gives me balance--much more balance. And it's much more comprehensive. It encompasses--well, just about everything. Oh, yeah. This is it. This is my philosophy of education.
"I feel much better now. I feel like I know where I need to go. I know what the school really needs and I know how to get there."

Muse shook her head with concern as she listened to Schoolman's thoughts.

"Schoolman after schoolman...," Muse said to herself, "Once they know something, they forget nothing."

have visited since creation on February 21, 1996.

Make Something from Nothing!

See SomeThings that have come from Nothing.

See Ancient SomeThings

SEVEN WONDERS: New & Original Sites: Information and Education. March 5, 1996.
POINT LYCOS: Top 5% of the Web: Education; Philosophy. (1996-1998)

About Nothing

I hope you enjoyed the page. This is my first attempt at WebWeaving. Please share your comments or tips for improvement.

I am also interested in what you thought about the essay. I had to write a "philosophy of education" once. I struggled and struggled because "nothing" I thought of captured the spirit of my thought. Everything seemed so static. This is what evolved from that experience. I hope I conveyed that spirit to you. What do you think?

What does the last sentence mean to you?
What is the ground for creativity in our lives?
How do you feel about your local school?
Do students learn more when they construct knowledge rather than "get" knowledge?
Is a "passion for learning" critical to one's welfare in the near future?

I dedicate this page to Ann Clontz, who inspired me to do Nothing in education.

I'm interested in your comments.
e-mail me