The Tame and the Wild

Our first day of class was a springboard for the rest of the week.  In the morning session, David Perkins, spoke to us about his ideas on thinking for understanding.  Just in case the fact that Mr. Perkins teaches at Harvard's Graduate School of Education is not enough of a reason to believe he is qualified in this area, here are some of his credentials:

David Perkins received his Ph.D. in mathematics and artificial intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970.  As a graduate student he also was a founding member of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Project Zero Classroom started as a basic research project investigating human symbolic capacities and their development.  Since 1967, Project Zero has examined the development of learning processes in children, adults, and organizations.  For many years, he served as co-director, and is now senior co-director and a member of the steering committee. Perkins conducts research on creativity in the arts and sciences, informal reasoning, problem solving, understanding, individual and organizational learning, and the teaching of thinking skills. He has participated in curriculum projects addressing thinking, understanding, and learning in Colombia, Israel, Venezuela, South Africa, Sweden, Holland, Australia, and the United States. He is actively involved in school change. Perkins is a co-founder of WIDE World, a distance learning initiative for practitioners. He is the author of numerous publications, including The Eureka Effect (about creativity), King Arthur's Round Table (about organizational intelligence and learning), and Making Learning Whole (a general framework for deepening education at all levels).

So let me say in no way do I claim to be an expert of his teachings at this point. However, I hope this redelivery of his message is beneficial, in some way, to those viewing it.

The Tame and the Wild Redelivery from Wendy Henderson on Vimeo.