Add a new chapter to

an existing one- Jerome Bruner

Bruner's words (picture to the right; from rededucom.org) ring a bell: "‘The best way to create

interest in a subject is to render it worth knowing,’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 31). To him, an ‘unconnected set

of facts has a pitiably short half-life in memory’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 31). If only education as a process

to students can be facilitated or simplified, ‘if it can be given to them in terms they understand’

(Bruner, 1960, p. 39). One ‘aspect of learning may be called transformation-the process of

manipulating knowledge to make it fit new tasks’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 48). ‘We usually tailor

material to the capacities and needs of students by manipulating learning episodes in several ways: by shortening or lengthening the episode, by piling on extrinsic

rewards in the form of praise’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 49). ‘Given enough absorption in class, some students may be able to carry over the feeling to work done on their own’

(Bruner, 1960, p. 50). It is not the case (Bruner, 1960, p. 51) that "to learn is to learn is to learn."

The American psychologist who made significant contributions proceeds on to say: ‘It is not amiss to urge that actual curricula be reexamined with an eye to the

issues of continuity and development’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 54). In a learning episode, teachers need to empower students, incapacitate them, and that brings in ‘the

importance of a high degree of mastery of materials in order to operate effectively’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 57). Check this adage: ‘Individuals who have extensive familiarity

with a subject appear more often to leap intuitively into a decision or to a solution of a problem-one which later proves to be appropriate’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 62).

More importantly of him, is when he professed that ‘changing social, cultural, and political conditions continually alter the surroundings and the goals of schools

and their students’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 8). He goes on to say (Bruner, 1960, p. 10) that ‘if all students are helped to the full utilization of their intellectual powers, we will

have a better chance of surviving as a democracy in an age of enormous technological and social complexity’. ‘The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the

courageous leap to a tentative conclusion-these are the most valuable coin of the thinker’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 14). Instructors, he concludes, need to have students

‘ignite others with a sense of the intrinsic excitement of the subject’ (Bruner, 1960, p. 90).

Bruner, J. (1960). The Process of Education. Harvard University Press