Roger Schank

rational logic reason education assumption

“As long as we see ourselves as rational beings who can think logically and make carefully reasoned decisions about our daily lives, then education indeed should be about the promotion of reasoned deliberation and the gaining of knowledge that will enhance our ability to reason. But suppose this conception we have of ourselves and our ability to reason logically is simply wrong?”

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

human logic stories storytelling

"Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

learning want learn teach

"Learning happens when someone wants to learn, not when someone wants to teach."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

question important answer intelligence student thinker

"Questions are the important thing, answers are less important. Learning to ask a good question is the heart of intelligence. Learning the answer-well, answers are for students. Questions are for thinkers."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

learning explain phenomena understand intelligence

"Learning to explain phenomena such that one continues to be fascinated by the failure of one's explanations creates a continuing cycle of thinking, that is the crux of intelligence. It isn't that one person knows more than another, then. In as sense, it is important to know less than the next person, or at least to be certain of less, thus enabling more curiosity and less explaining away because one has again encountered a well-known phenomenon. The less you know the more you can find out about, and finding out for oneself is what intelligence is all about."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

interest waste

"Interest is a terrible thing to waste."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

stories storyteling fund use

"In the end all we have...are stories and methods of finding and using those stories."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

programming computer literate intellect sharpen mind

"There is one very good reason to learn programming, but it has nothing to do with preparing for high-tech careers or with making sure one is computer literate in order to avoid being cynically manipulated by the computers of the future. The real value of learning to program can only be understood if we look at learning to program as an exercise of the intellect, as a kind of modern-day Latin that we learn to sharpen our minds."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

school teach test

"Everything they teach in school is oriented so that they can test it to show that you know it, instead of taking note of the obvious, which is that people learn by doing what people want to do."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

education doing thinking

"Education in a deepest sense has always been about doing rather than about knowing."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

learning reovery failure

"Learning is about failure and recovery from failure."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)

abstract rules of thumb experience story life storytelling

We can tell people abstract rules of thumb which we have derived from prior experiences, but it is very difficult for other people to learn from these. We have difficulty remembering such abstractions, but we can more easily remember a good story. Stories give life to past experience. Stories make the events in memory memorable to others and to ourselves. This is one of the reasons why people like to tell stories."

― Roger Schank (1946-2023)