I did not throw out my education lightly, but what I was being taught was of no use in explaining what I saw around me. It was the Great Depression.
Interpretation
Education must be relevant to one's experiences and observations.
In this quote, Paul Samuelson reflects on the inadequacy of traditional education during the Great Depression, where he felt that what he was taught did not align with the harsh realities he observed in the world. This illustrates a broader critique of educational systems that may not prepare individuals for real-life challenges, emphasizing the importance of practical and applicable knowledge in any learning process.
In practice
In a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of relevant education.
To a person of analytical ability, perceptive enough to realise that mathematical equipment was a powerful sword in economics, the world of economics was his or her oyster in 1935. The terrain was strewn with beautiful theorems begging to be picked up and arranged in unified order.
I can't think of a president who has been overburdened by a knowledge of economics.
My belief is that nothing that can be expressed by mathematics cannot be expressed by careful use of literary words.
Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.
My family was well off but not rich. I spent the four years I was an undergraduate working on the beach. And it wasn't because I was lazy; it was because my freshman class would go to a hundred different employers and wouldn't get a nibble. That was a disequilibrium system. I realized that the ordinary old-fashioned Euclidean geometry didn't apply.
Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.
There are so many kids in this country growing up in poverty, facing very, very hard challenges... We need resilience for all of them.
If you want to make information stick, it's best to learn it, go away from it for a while, come back to it later, leave it behind again, and once again return to it - to engage with it deeply across time. Our memories naturally degrade, but each time you return to a memory, you reactivate its neural network and help to lock it in.
Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts in a manner all their own, and I'm convinced that the shattered world has less hope for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it.
As a people, we value family, education and success. Hunger is an enemy to all three. Scientific studies have demonstrated that even brief periods of hunger can permanently inhibit a child's mental, emotional and physical growth. Kids who are hungry do poorly in school and are unlikely to grow into productive adults. For families, experiencing hunger means living in a world of isolation and shame. Caring citizens must put an end to this disgrace.
You can't just declare that you have a growth mindset. Growth mindset is hard.
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