Scanning through my Twitter feed today I noticed a tweet from @SkillShare linking a recent article on BrainPickings.org. The article collects 10 quotes from Frank Lloyd Write, captured in a new book. One of the quotes is particularly provocative and I’ll be pondering this perspective over the long holiday weekend, and whether I agree.
“Education, of course, is always based on what was. Education shows you what has been and leaves you to make the deduction as to what may be. Education as we pursue it cannot prophesy, and does not.” – Frank Lloyd Wright (1955)
Initially, I read this as a claim that the process of education is separate from the process of innovation. If that were true, wouldn’t that mean that there is no innovation while one is learning? I tend to think that part of education includes introducing new (and untested) ideas.
I don’t want to over analyze a statement taken out of context here, but I think there is quite a bit contained in this particular statement.
10 Thoughts on Education and Learning from Legendary Architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, Nature, and the Human Spirit: A Collection of Quotations