Umberto Eco's Antilibrary or How We Seek Validation

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with "Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?" and the others---a very small minority---who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco's library sensibility by focusing on the know is a human bias that extends to our mental operations. people don't walk around with anti-résumés telling you what they have not studied or experienced (its the job of their competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did. Just as we need to stand library logic on its head, we will work on standing knowledge itself on its head. Note that the Black Swan comes from our misunderstanding of the likelihood of surprises, those unread books, because we take what we know a little too seriously.

Let us call an antischolar---someone who focuses on the unread books, and makes an attempt not to treat his knowledge as a treasure, or even a possession, or even a self-esteem enhancement device---a skeptical empiricist.

The pioneering technique that's helping to combat depression in the classroom

By James Morrison
Published: 19 July 2007

Tom Bagley seems a cheerful enough lad. Like most children on the cusp of puberty, he's prone to the odd mood, and anxieties about homework or peer pressure. But, if he submitted to analysis, it's unlikely that he'd be diagnosed as anything other than a profoundly normal 12-year-old. continue...

Mum's the word: Why Oxford students are putting motherhood before career

By Lucy Tobin
Published: 19 July 2007

Oxford students Amy Butler, Chloe Mattison and Danielle Abbiss

A group of women students at Oxford are scrutinising a photo of 100 beaming freshers, wondering who will end up being famous. As an Oxford undergraduate myself, I am part of the group and I notice that, after identifying candidates for Prime Minister, next year's Pop Idol and a university professor, the girls all discount themselves from the top of any career ladder on the grounds that their maternal ambitions are stronger than their professional aims. Oxford's undergraduates are billed as among Britain's brainiest, but we female students are prioritising marriage and children over a career. continue...

Hain to coax lone parents and over 50s back to work

By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 16 July 2007

Lone parents are to be targeted with "tough love" as part of a radical overhaul of the welfare system aimed at getting 2.3 million people to take jobs and move off benefits.

A Green Paper delivered to the Cabinet last week by Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, will lay the foundation for the implementation of David Freud's report. It recommended that lone parents should be required to seek work if their youngest child is 12 years or over. continue...

Terence Blacker: We need to wage war on teenage boredom

Like many parents, the Government has more or less given up on teenagers

Published: 13 July 2007

The sounds of the British summer holidays will soon be heard on our city streets and on the squares of our market towns. There will be laughter, raised voices, the occasional sound of breaking glass, a squeal of tyres and, later, that now-familiar type of informal community singing which is leery with booze and boredom. Some of this al-fresco misbehaviour will come from disappointed men who are startled to discover they are middle-aged, but much will involve people under 20. continue...

The Big Question: Should secondary schools replace traditional subjects with 'topics'?

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 13 July 2007

Why are we asking this now?
The Government has just unveiled its new blueprint for the secondary school curriculum. The main difference is that - instead of sticking to the traditional subject-dominated timetable - teachers will be free to introduce more topic-based lessons. continue...

Classroom revolution as curriculum embraces modern life

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 13 July 2007

The Government has unveiled a new curriculum to bring schools into the 21st century - giving more space for pupils to tackle controversial issues such as global warming and nuclear power.

Teachers will also be given greater freedom to break free from the traditional subject-based national curriculum for pupils aged 11 to 16, facilitating the introduction of topics which help prepare youngsters for adult life, Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum - the Government's exams watchdog, said yesterday.

They will range from lessons on Britain's place in the global economy to individual economic well-being - which could include how to avoid debt and buy a home, respect for other cultures and even cookery - to help instil healthy eating habits into tomorrow's adults. continue...

Enabling Environment Conference

Speech by His Highness the Aga Khan at The Enabling Environment Conference in Kabul, Afghanistan
June 4, 2007

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Your Excellency President Hamid Karzai
Your Excellencies
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is a great pleasure and honour to be with you all today. We extend our warmest thanks to all those whose dedication has made this conference possible, most especially to President Karzai and the Government of Afghanistan for their central role - as well as to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who will attend tomorrow's closing session. continue...

Publish new books one chapter at a time

Idea A Day
Where Ideas Are Free

Welcome to Day 2484

Publish new books one chapter at a time. If the book is good enough, readers will buy the next chapter. If not, they haven't wasted a larger sum of money for something they will never read.

day 2484 by Anya Thorsteinsdottir

comment on this idea

Contact the author directly

Harvard introduces teaching reforms

Are universities neglecting teaching? Many critics think so. And now even Harvard is introducing reform.

By Lucy Hodges
Published: 10 May 2007

Harvard, the world's richest university, wants to improve its undergraduate teaching. Like other Ivy League universities in the United States, Harvard charges more than $30,000 (£15,000) a year in tuition but its academics concentrate on research rather than teaching because it confers status. continue...

Harvard's lesson

Published: 10 May 2007

It is good news that some universities in Britain have woken up to the need to put more effort into teaching as opposed to research. Many students feel short-changed by the lack of interest shown in them by academics, and by the passive nature of a lot of their learning. This feeling is likely to grow with top-up fees.

Universities that are sensitive to their students will take a leaf out of Harvard's book and think about how to make their teaching more interesting and relevant. If the University of Sydney, in Australia, can introduce reforms to reward good teaching, so, too, can British institutions. continue...

Leading Article: Virtual future

Published: 17 May 2007

Since the much-heralded E-university initiative collapsed and the Open University pulled out of its ambitious US venture, little has been heard about the amazing benefits of online learning. But now Essex University is launching a two-year foundation degree wholly online in partnership with the US education firm Kaplan. The first course, which will be in business studies, starts in July. All the teaching will be done by Kaplan Open Learning, a specially created affiliated college of Essex. It is undoubtedly sensible to go into business with a company that has experience in the field. This could work where previous initiatives failed. continue...

Finals countdown: How to avoid meltdown during exam season

Exam season at university is hugely stressful. But meltdown can be avoided

By Chris Green
Published: 17 May 2007

Testing times: Many students are filled with abject terror

The month of May is exam time in universities. Although the introduction of modular degrees and continuous assessment means that degree results no longer depend solely on final exams, students still approach the period with trepidation and, in some cases, abject terror.

"Exam stress is a problem that has always been there," says Alex Duncan, president of Durham University Students' Union. "Some people work far too hard, others not quite hard enough. University is a key stage in people's lives, and they do want it to benefit them in the long term." continue...

Trials and tribulations of picking a university

It's vital to choose the right university for you. So don't just rely on the prospectus, says Chris Green

Published: 24 May 2007

Choosing a university is a huge decision, and one which may well have a knock-on effect on your future career prospects. If studying the UCAS listings and reading every prospectus from cover to cover doesn't help you make your mind up, take the time to actually visit the places you're considering studying in. After all, you'll be spending at least three years there. continue...

Schools import China's teachers for lessons in 'language of tomorrow'

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 24 May 2007

All the country's 250 specialist language schools have been told by a government adviser that they should put Mandarin on the curriculum as "the language of tomorrow". continue...

Cheap Laptops Getting Tryouts in Small Pilot Projects

THAILAND: Students in a village in Thailand use XO laptop computers to take pictures of local vegetation, mushrooms, and herbs. The students in Samkha and their teacher are testing the technology to see how they can integrate it into their schoolwork. —Courtesy of laptop.org

Bold initiative still faces questions about worth.

By Andrew Trotter

The audacious plan to put $100 laptop computers into the hands of children and teachers in some of the world’s poorest countries has enjoyed a lengthy afterglow from its celebrated launch in 2005—without yet proving it is both workable and wise.

Since Nicholas Negroponte, the former head of the MIT Media Laboratory, first presented the plan to international leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, two years ago, many have questioned the initiative on both scores.

Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel Corp., the computer-chip-making giant, argues the low-cost laptop lacks such essential features as sufficient data storage. And more recently, in an interview in the journal Foreign Policy, he said “the money would be more intelligently spent on creating the infrastructure—training teachers and creating the environment for education.” continue...

Philip Hensher: Two-year degrees make a mockery of universities

Contrary to popular belief, vacations are not opportunities to disport oneself on an Aegean beach
Published: 22 May 2007

What are universities for? Or, to put it another and more fundamental way, what is a university? For most people who work in one, the answer has always been that they are institutions that balance direct learning and opportunities for original research. As students progress through the system, the direct instruction aspect tends to diminish, the research element increases; and a certain spirit of egalitarianism reflects the fact that the faculty are not just teachers, but engaged in the same search for knowledge as their PhD, MA or even BA students. continue...

Ministers 'wasted' £20m on city academy consultants

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 10 May 2007

The Government has been accused of wasting more than £20m on hiring consultants to evaluate city academies.

Teachers' leaders argued that the money - when coupled with the £28m spent taking on non-teaching project managers to plan the programme - could have been used to build two new schools. Alternatively, it could have been spent on paying the wages of 1,300 teachers for a year. continue...

No more school as council opens 'learning centres'

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Published: 14 May 2007

In the words of rock legend Alice Cooper's most famous song, "school's out forever".

Knowsley Council in Merseyside, which - for years - has languished near or at the bottom of exam league tables, has abolished the use of the word to describe secondary education in the borough.

It is taking the dramatic step of closing all of its eleven existing secondary schools by 2009. As part of a £150m government-backed rebuilding programme, they will reopen as seven state-of-the-art, round-the-clock, learning centres with the aid of Microsoft - which has already developed links with one school in the borough, Bowring.

The style of learning will be completely different. The new centres will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.

Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.
Children will be able to study haircare, beauty therapy, leisure and tourism, and engineering as well as the more traditional academic subjects.

They will be given their day's assignments in groups of 120 in the morning before dispersing to internet cafe-style zones in the learning centres to carry them out.

The 21,000 youngsters of secondary education age in Knowsley will also be able to access their learning programmes from home.

Madeleine Cotson, the headteacher of Bowring, said: "Provided they can show they have developed their learning, there is no reason why they couldn't do some of their learning from home." continue...

Arts students will be £50,000 poorer than other graduates

By Richard Garner
Published: 08 May 2007

Arts graduates are doing little to shake off their 1960s reputation for being less than hard-working, as research suggests they are likely to earn £50,000 less than other graduates during their first five years of employment. continue...