[00:00.00]Lesson One Text
[00:04.10]Twelve Things I Wish They Taught at School
[00:08.46]Carl Sagan
[00:11.83]I attended junior and senior high school,
[00:16.27]public institutions in New York and New Jersey,just after the Second World War.
[00:23.64]It seems a long time ago.
[00:27.19]The facilities and the skills of the teachers
[00:31.63]were probably well above average for the United States at that time.
[00:37.69]Since then,I've learned a great deal.
[00:42.06]One of the most important things I've learned is how much there is to learn,
[00:48.72]and how much I don't yet know.
[00:53.37]Sometimes I think how grateful I would be today
[00:58.70]if I had learned more back then about what really matters.
[01:05.46]In some respects that education was terribly narrow;
[01:11.81]the only thing I ever heard in school about Napoleon
[01:16.49]was that the United States made the Louisiana Purchase from him.
[01:22.94](On a planet where some 95% of the inhabitants are not Americans,
[01:30.38]the only history that was thought worth teaching was American history.)
[01:36.44]In spelling, grammar,the fundamentals of math,
[01:42.09]and other vital subjects,my teachers did a pretty good job.
[01:48.04]But there's so much else I wish they'd taught us.
[01:52.30]Perhaps all the deficiencies have since been rectified.
[01:58.18]It seems to me there are many things
[02:02.54](often more a matter of attitude and perception
[02:07.69]than the simple memorization of facts)
[02:11.53]that the schools should teach
[02:15.97]— things that truly would be useful in later life,
[02:20.64]useful in making a stronger country and a better world,
[02:26.60]but useful also in making people happier.
[02:30.86]Human beings enjoy learning.
[02:34.70]That's one of the few things that we do better than the other species on our planet
[02:40.47]Every student should regularly experience the "Aha!"
[02:46.03] —when something you never understood,
[02:50.19]or something you never knew was a mystery,becomes clear.
[02:56.04]So here's my list:Pick a difficult thing and learn it well.
[03:02.91]The Greek philosopher Socrates
[03:06.75]said this was one of the greatest of human joys,and it is.
[03:12.31]While you learn a little bit about many subjects,
[03:16.99]make sure you learn a great deal about one or two.
[03:22.14]It hardly matters what the subject is,as long as it deeply interests you,
[03:28.59]and you place it in its broader human context.
[03:33.63]After you teach yourself one subject,
[03:37.47]you become much more confident about your ability to teach yourself another.
[03:43.43]You gradually find you've acquired a key skill.
[03:48.57]The world is changing so rapidly
[03:53.43]that you must continue to teach yourself throughout your life.
[03:58.99]But don't get trapped by the first subject that interests you,
[04:04.43]or the first thing you find yourself good at.
[04:09.08]The world is full of wonders,
[04:12.92]and some of them we don't discover until we're all grown up.
[04:17.65]Most of them, sadly,we never discover.
[04:23.31]Don't be afraid to ask "stupid" questions.
[04:28.56]Many apparently naive inquiries like why grass is green,
[04:35.51]or why the Sun is round,or why we need 55,000 nuclear weapons in the world
[04:44.16]— are really deep questions.
[04:47.71]The answers can be a gateway to real insights.
[04:52.47]It's also important to know, as well as you can,
[04:57.33] what it is that you don't know,and asking questions is the way.
[05:03.80]To ask "stupid" questions requires courage on the part of the asker
[05:10.15]and knowledge and patience on the part of the answerer.
[05:15.51]And don't confine your learning to school work.
[05:19.58]Discuss ideas in depth with friends.
[05:23.84]It's much braver to ask questions
[05:27.78]even when there's a prospect of ridicule than to suppress your questions
[05:34.16]and become deadened to the world around you.
[05:38.31]Listen carefully.
[05:41.37]Many conversations are a kind of competition
[05:46.02]that rarely leads to discovery on either side.
[05:50.75]When people are talking,
[05:53.91]don't spend the time thinking about what you're going to say next.
[05:59.34]Instead,try to understand what they're saying,
[06:04.38]what experience is behind their remarks,
[06:08.74]what you can learn from or about them.
[06:13.60]Older people have grown up in a world very different from yours,
[06:19.38]one you may not know very well.
[06:23.22]They,and people from other parts of the country and from other nations
[06:29.69]have important perspectives that can enrich your life.
[06:34.95]Everybody makes mistakes.
[06:38.50]Everybody's understanding is incomplete.
[06:42.65]Be open to correction,and learn to correct your own mistakes.
[06:48.61]The only embarrassment is in not learning from your mistakes.
[06:54.17]Know your planet.
[06:58.61]It's the only one we have.Learn how it works.
[07:03.97]We're changing the atmosphere,the surface the waters of the Earth,
[07:10.34]often for some short-term advantage
[07:14.49]when the long-term implications are unknown.
[07:19.22]The citizens of any country
[07:24.19]should have at least something to say about the direction in which we're going.
[07:29.52]If we don't understand the issues,we abandon the future.
[07:35.68]Science and technology.
[07:39.23]You can't know your planet
[07:42.58]unless you know something about science and technology
[07:47.33]School science courses I remember,
[07:51.59]concentrated on the unimportant parts of science,
[07:56.26]leaving the major insights almost untouched.
[08:00.71]The great discoveries in modern science
[08:04.78]are also great discoveries of the human spirit.
[08:09.43]For example,Copernicus showed that
[08:15.70]—far from being the center of the universe,
[08:19.54]about which the Sun,the Moon,the planets,
[08:24.22]and the stars revolved in clockwise homage —
[08:28.58]the Earth is just one of many small worlds.
[08:33.02]This is a deflation of our pretensions, to be sure,
[08:38.37]but it is also the opening up to our view of a vast and awesome universe.
[08:45.04]Every high school graduate should have some idea of the insights of Copernicus
[08:52.19]Newton, Darwin, Freud, and Einstein.
[08:57.16](Einstein's special theory of relativity,
[09:01.31]far from being obscure and exceptionally difficult,
[09:06.59]can be understood in its basics with no more than first-year algebra,
[09:12.75]and the notion of a rowboat in a river going upstream and downstream.)
[09:19.52]Don't spend your life watching TV.
[09:23.88]You know what I'm talking about Culture.
[09:28.45]Gain some exposure to the great works of literature,art and music.
[09:35.01]If such a work is hundreds or thousands of years old and is still admired,
[09:42.27]there is probably something to it.
[09:46.03] Like all deep experiences,
[09:50.39]it may take a little work on your part to discover what all the fuss is about.
[09:56.45]But once you make the effort,your life has changed;
[10:01.73]you've acquired a source of enjoyment
[10:05.57]and excitement for the rest of your day!
[10:10.04]In a world as tightly connected as ours is,
[10:14.48]don't restrict your attention to American or Western culture.
[10:20.12]Learn how and what people elsewhere think.
[10:25.19]Learn something of their religion,their viewpoints.
[10:31.25]Compassion.
[10:33.99]Many people believe that we live in an extraordinarily selfish time.
[10:40.23]But there is a hollowness,
[10:43.68]a loneliness that comes from living only for yourself.
[10:49.25]Humans are capable of great mutual compassion,love,and tenderness.
[10:56.90]These feelings,however need encouragement to grow.
[11:02.07]Look at the delight a one- or two-year-old takes,in learning,
[11:07.53]and you see how powerful is the human will to learn.
[11:13.10]Our passion to understand the universe compassion for others
[11:19.26]jointly provide the chief hope for the human race.
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