Hi Brandon! I’m a college student and friends with several people on the teacher-track. I adored your review, and it’s inspired me to go out and try to get Egan’s book myself. I tutor elementary school kids as my day job, and I’ve witnessed firsthand some of the principles you’ve mentioned work without even knowing how to describe them. (You’re right; these tools are often “too big to see”.) I can’t wait to read more of your and Egan’s writing and see how I can apply your many excellent words.
This is going to sound odd, but can I recommend any other book of Egan’s? I picked his big theoretical one for the review, but his others are more digestible. scienceisWEIRD.com/egan is probably the best place to start.
Also, I’d be happy to share my distillations of “Educated Mind” with you.
Hey Brandon! I'm a founding member at a progressive virtual school startup (Prisma) and your review (and work!) were such a fruitful discovery for me. Would love to connect and talk online learning/homeschooling/innovative edtech landscape sometime.
I came here straight from having an interesting debate on the merits of your review, over in the comments on ACX. My claim was that your persuading us to believe that change is possible in education is the real win.
A side note of perhaps dubious interest here, but I have realized that when I voted for your review I had conflated it in my mind (in the months since reading it) with some ACX comment about a fundamentally better way to teach math to children. If anyone reading this wrote that comment and could remind me of the method and the book, I would be grateful.
Finally, a pointer and a second disclaimer in the guise of a story: I think it was on lesswrong and not ACX, and it's one of the first comments, where the guy talks about PCK in math education and mentions there being just the one book. I have a different book, which means there's a comment tree, but there's a surprisingly small amount of hunting needed to find both. I hope this helps!
"Sowder" sounds familiar but I'm not sure if that's it. I never go on LessWrong (other than to find specific of the sequences to send people who need them). That post has some excellent points.
Congratulations, loved the review. I suspect your aspiration to be the longest ever will be in vain though - either the epic book review on Georgism from last year (? two years ago?) or one of Scott's more than you ever wanted to know on... posts will surely have you beat.
I loved the surprise of seeing who you are, though - I've been keeping an eye on Science is Weird for a while, after watching a couple of videos and seeing that you obviously think about education in the same way I do. More is more! The more connections kids build, the more models and related topics they have to draw in, the better they can understand and retain material.
Also... I hadn't realised until this moment, but I'm in a car on my way to do some maths tutoring, which will include, as a warm-up, Raymond Smullyan's knights and knaves riddles. It's been on my bookshelf for ages, but it perhaps only popped into my mind as the right activity for this group because of your review. So there's a little impact your writing has already had on my teaching. Thanks!
Oh, I love Raymond Smullyan! When my wife and I co-taught an elementary school class, we used one of his riddles (from “The Riddles of Scheherezade”) in the summary-of-the-last-week “Brain Bowl” game we did on Fridays. I should actually write about that here… thanks!
Congratulations and glad that the contest led me to your newly created Substack! The competition was top notch. I deliberated quite a bit on my votes, but I voted for your essay first and am glad it won. It was the only review that introduced me to a completely new topic and I found that the ideas you presented spent the longest time circulating in my mind.
Y’know, I think I might have only noticed it after I finished writing it, but yeah — of all the educational philosophies on proffer, I think that Charlotte Mason’s might be the closest fit to Egan’s. I’m a big fan, and am planning some posts on it here.
How’s the experiment in ‘comments on’ going? Looks pretty good from where I sit, but maybe you’ve been deleting / blocking? Here’s my argument for why they should stay on:
1. Being better at taking written criticism would serve you well. This skill, like any, takes practice.
2. Constructive criticism will improve your ideals and their delivery. You have ambitious goals and need all the help you can get. Don’t limit that help by restricting it to just being in person.
3. You want to build a movement for educational reform. Movements take community. A comment section helps engaged people interact with each other.
I loved your review enough that my wife was convinced to read the original book. And she found that it was, well... "interminable, long-winded, and tortuous." You already improved quite a bit over the source material.
Ha! His style is an acquired taste; I’m glad I’m able to make it more accessible to folk. I’ll say that his “Future of Education” is probably the most easily-readable of his works, though if your wife has a specific interest, she might be find something even better. When Kieran died last year, I wrote a brief explainer of how to get into his work: scienceisWEIRD.com/egan
A thing that concerns me: I read (half of) your review and about two others, and I think there were about 20 total finalists published. I didn't vote, so I didn't effect the outcome, but I wonder how much of the vote was based primarily on "has read at least part of it" and therefore based primarily on "the title was interesting".
Congrats either way, I have thought about the half of your review that I read in the time since reading it, which is more than I can say for the others.
Agreed that the voting process is imperfect. I debated whether my review being ungodly long was going to, on net, hurt it or help it. I suspect the former (some people commented that they didn't want to encourage longer and longer reviews), but one element of the latter that helped for the first round was that, on the Google Docs, the outlines were listed — and my outline was multiple times as long as everybody else's.
Congrats! Saw you won and came to subscribe immediately. Really interested to learn more.
Hi Brandon! I’m a college student and friends with several people on the teacher-track. I adored your review, and it’s inspired me to go out and try to get Egan’s book myself. I tutor elementary school kids as my day job, and I’ve witnessed firsthand some of the principles you’ve mentioned work without even knowing how to describe them. (You’re right; these tools are often “too big to see”.) I can’t wait to read more of your and Egan’s writing and see how I can apply your many excellent words.
WOW! Thanks for this! (Very motivating!)
This is going to sound odd, but can I recommend any other book of Egan’s? I picked his big theoretical one for the review, but his others are more digestible. scienceisWEIRD.com/egan is probably the best place to start.
Also, I’d be happy to share my distillations of “Educated Mind” with you.
Hey Brandon! I'm a founding member at a progressive virtual school startup (Prisma) and your review (and work!) were such a fruitful discovery for me. Would love to connect and talk online learning/homeschooling/innovative edtech landscape sometime.
Ooh, let's! I'll shoot you an email...
I came here straight from having an interesting debate on the merits of your review, over in the comments on ACX. My claim was that your persuading us to believe that change is possible in education is the real win.
A side note of perhaps dubious interest here, but I have realized that when I voted for your review I had conflated it in my mind (in the months since reading it) with some ACX comment about a fundamentally better way to teach math to children. If anyone reading this wrote that comment and could remind me of the method and the book, I would be grateful.
I, too, would be interested in the book! (Might even be fun to do a review of it here…)
(Disclaimer: I was not a part of the original discussion - merely a reader) This is less a comment and more a linklist to backup that I think I understand where you saw that post. First, the book: https://www.amazon.com/Reconceptualizing-Mathematics-Elementary-School-Teachers/dp/1464193339
Next, the post:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CsNtMunxsZnvumYLe/seeking-pck-pedagogical-content-knowledge
Finally, a pointer and a second disclaimer in the guise of a story: I think it was on lesswrong and not ACX, and it's one of the first comments, where the guy talks about PCK in math education and mentions there being just the one book. I have a different book, which means there's a comment tree, but there's a surprisingly small amount of hunting needed to find both. I hope this helps!
"Sowder" sounds familiar but I'm not sure if that's it. I never go on LessWrong (other than to find specific of the sequences to send people who need them). That post has some excellent points.
Phenomenal piece, congratulations. Your review made me look at the world--or more specifically, my kids and their schooling--differently
What a flipping fantastic thing to hear! THANK you!
Congratulations, loved the review. I suspect your aspiration to be the longest ever will be in vain though - either the epic book review on Georgism from last year (? two years ago?) or one of Scott's more than you ever wanted to know on... posts will surely have you beat.
I loved the surprise of seeing who you are, though - I've been keeping an eye on Science is Weird for a while, after watching a couple of videos and seeing that you obviously think about education in the same way I do. More is more! The more connections kids build, the more models and related topics they have to draw in, the better they can understand and retain material.
I will continue to read, keep up the good work!
Also... I hadn't realised until this moment, but I'm in a car on my way to do some maths tutoring, which will include, as a warm-up, Raymond Smullyan's knights and knaves riddles. It's been on my bookshelf for ages, but it perhaps only popped into my mind as the right activity for this group because of your review. So there's a little impact your writing has already had on my teaching. Thanks!
Oh, I love Raymond Smullyan! When my wife and I co-taught an elementary school class, we used one of his riddles (from “The Riddles of Scheherezade”) in the summary-of-the-last-week “Brain Bowl” game we did on Fridays. I should actually write about that here… thanks!
You review was clearly the best. I also remember that I loved the book back when I read it in a Danish translation some 20 years ago.
Oh, man, a fellow Egan-fan!
Do you know anyone else in Denmark who’s into Egan? I’m working with a friend in Italy to help the community of Egan-heads across Europe…
Congratulations and glad that the contest led me to your newly created Substack! The competition was top notch. I deliberated quite a bit on my votes, but I voted for your essay first and am glad it won. It was the only review that introduced me to a completely new topic and I found that the ideas you presented spent the longest time circulating in my mind.
Loved your review -- the topic is of intense interest to me. Have you read any of Charlotte Mason’s writing?
Y’know, I think I might have only noticed it after I finished writing it, but yeah — of all the educational philosophies on proffer, I think that Charlotte Mason’s might be the closest fit to Egan’s. I’m a big fan, and am planning some posts on it here.
How’s the experiment in ‘comments on’ going? Looks pretty good from where I sit, but maybe you’ve been deleting / blocking? Here’s my argument for why they should stay on:
1. Being better at taking written criticism would serve you well. This skill, like any, takes practice.
2. Constructive criticism will improve your ideals and their delivery. You have ambitious goals and need all the help you can get. Don’t limit that help by restricting it to just being in person.
3. You want to build a movement for educational reform. Movements take community. A comment section helps engaged people interact with each other.
Looking forward to our next chat! Congrats again!
I loved your review enough that my wife was convinced to read the original book. And she found that it was, well... "interminable, long-winded, and tortuous." You already improved quite a bit over the source material.
Ha! His style is an acquired taste; I’m glad I’m able to make it more accessible to folk. I’ll say that his “Future of Education” is probably the most easily-readable of his works, though if your wife has a specific interest, she might be find something even better. When Kieran died last year, I wrote a brief explainer of how to get into his work: scienceisWEIRD.com/egan
Hey Brandon, just to say - I really liked both the content and the style of your ACX review, a very well-deserved win!
A thing that concerns me: I read (half of) your review and about two others, and I think there were about 20 total finalists published. I didn't vote, so I didn't effect the outcome, but I wonder how much of the vote was based primarily on "has read at least part of it" and therefore based primarily on "the title was interesting".
Congrats either way, I have thought about the half of your review that I read in the time since reading it, which is more than I can say for the others.
Also, I dig your profile pic...
Agreed that the voting process is imperfect. I debated whether my review being ungodly long was going to, on net, hurt it or help it. I suspect the former (some people commented that they didn't want to encourage longer and longer reviews), but one element of the latter that helped for the first round was that, on the Google Docs, the outlines were listed — and my outline was multiple times as long as everybody else's.