Olá, Francicleber: Feynman passou um tempo no Brasil entre 1950 (ano em que Bertrand Russell ganhou seu prêmio Nobel em Literatura) e 1951, se não me engano. O texto que você copiou está no capítulo "O Americano, Outra Vez!" (sim, o título em português é do original).
Pessoalmente, não acho que a situação que ele denuncia tenha melhorado muito. Talvez até tenha piorado (quem antes aprendia sem entender, hoje nem chega a aprender!). Também não acho que vamos conseguir melhorar isto enquanto os professores forem escolhidos, em geral, entre os menos capazes entre nós, o povo brasileiro. Com sorte, contudo, serei eu apenas um pessimista. Abraços, JM 2011/8/10 Francicleber M. Ferreira <[email protected]>: > Olá pessoal, > > um amigo meu pergunta se o que é relatado no excerto abaixo, > aparentemente retirado do livro "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" > by Richard P. Feynman > (http://lib.ru/ANEKDOTY/FEINMAN/feinman_engl.txt), de fato ocorreu, se > esse quadro é representativo do ensino superior da época (a propósito, > que época é essa?) e como está hoje? Eu particularmente gostaria de > saber as respostas a essas perguntas tanto no âmbito do ensino > superior como um todo, no subgrupo das ciências exatas e em particular > na Física. Eu acho que nas boas universidades do Brasil, em particular > nas federais, a situação não é mais essa, estou enganado? Me parece > ainda que há mais um aspecto a ser considerado, a saber, a formação > dos professores no país. Qual era e qual é a situação nos cursos de > licenciatura e de bacharelado? Se alguém souber mais detalhes sobre > essa história, tipo onde exatamente isso aconteceu, também gostaria de > saber. > > Esse meu amigo conta que, segundo sua avaliação, esse quadro também > podia ser encontrado em algumas universidades russas há pouco tempo > atrás. > > Sei que o tópico não se encaixa exatamente no escopo da lista, mas > creio que possa ser do interesse de alguns, dado que boa parte dos > integrantes da lista estão de alguma forma ligados a instituições de > ensino superior, dentre os quais muitos são professores. > > Desde já grato pelas respostas! > > Francicleber > > > > In regard to education in Brazil, I had a very interesting experience. > I was teaching a group of students who would ultimately become teachers, > since at that time there were not many opportunities in Brazil for a highly > trained person in science. These students had already had many courses, and > this was to be their most advanced course in electricity and magnetism -- > Maxwell's equations, and so on. > The university was located in various office buildings throughout the > city, and the course I taught met in a building which overlooked the bay. > I discovered a very strange phenomenon: I could ask a question, which > the students would answer immediately. But the next time I would ask the > question -- the same subject, and the same question, as far as I could tell > -- they couldn't answer it at all! For instance, one time I was talking > about polarized light, and I gave them all some strips of polaroid. > Polaroid passes only light whose electric vector is in a certain > direction, so I explained how you could tell which way the light is > polarized from whether the polaroid is dark or light. > We first took two strips of polaroid and rotated them until they let > the most light through. From doing that we could tell that the two strips > were now admitting light polarized in the same direction -- what passed > through one piece of polaroid could also pass through the other. But then I > asked them how one could tell the absolute direction of polarization, for a > single piece of polaroid. > They hadn't any idea. > I knew this took a certain amount of ingenuity, so I gave them a hint: > "Look at the light reflected from the bay outside." > Nobody said anything. > Then I said, "Have you ever heard of Brewster's Angle?" > "Yes, sir! Brewster's Angle is the angle at which light reflected from > a medium with an index of refraction is completely polarized." > "And which way is the light polarized when it's reflected?" > "The light is polarized perpendicular to the plane of reflection, sir." > Even now, I have to think about it; they knew it cold! They even knew the > tangent of the angle equals the index! > I said, "Well?" > Still nothing. They had just told me that light reflected from a medium > with an index, such as the bay outside, was polarized; they had even told me > which way it was polarized. > I said, "Look at the bay outside, through the polaroid. Now turn the > polaroid." > "Ooh, it's polarized!" they said. > After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students > had memorized everything, but they didn't know what anything meant. When > they heard "light that is reflected from a medium with an index," they > didn't know that it meant a material such as water. They didn't know that > the "direction of the light" is the direction in which you see something > when you're looking at it, and so on. Everything was entirely memorized, yet > nothing had been translated into meaningful words. So if I asked, "What is > Brewster's Angle?" I'm going into the computer with the right keywords. But > if I say, "Look at the water," nothing happens -- they don't have anything > under "Look at the water"! > Later I attended a lecture at the engineering school. The lecture went > like this, translated into English: "Two bodies... are considered > equivalent... if equal torques... will produce... equal acceleration. Two > bodies, are considered equivalent, if equal torques, will produce equal > acceleration." The students were all sitting there taking dictation, and > when the professor repeated the sentence, they checked it to make sure they > wrote it down all right. Then they wrote down the next sentence, and on and > on. I was the only one who knew the professor was talking about objects with > the same moment of inertia, and it was hard to figure out. > I didn't see how they were going to learn anything from that. Here he > was talking about moments of inertia, but there was no discussion about how > hard it is to push a door open when you put heavy weights on the outside, > compared to when you put them near the hinge -- nothing! > After the lecture, I talked to a student: "You take all those notes -- > what do you do with them?" > "Oh, we study them," he says. "We'll have an exam." > "What will the exam be like?" > "Very easy. I can tell you now one of the questions." He looks at his > notebook and says, " 'When are two bodies equivalent?' And the answer is, > 'Two bodies are considered equivalent if equal torques will produce equal > acceleration.' " So, you see, they could pass the examinations, and "learn" > all this stuff, and not know anything at all, except what they had > memorized. > Then I went to an entrance exam for students coming into the > engineering school. It was an oral exam, and I was allowed to listen to it. > One of the students was absolutely super: He answered everything nifty! The > examiners asked him what diamagnetism was, and he answered it perfectly. > Then they asked, "When light comes at an angle through a sheet of material > with a certain thickness, and a certain index N, what happens to the light?" > "It comes out parallel to itself, sir -- displaced." > "And how much is it displaced?" > "I don't know, sir, but I can figure it out." So he figured it out. He > was very good. But I had, by this time, my suspicions. > After the exam I went up to this bright young man, and explained to him > that I was from the United States, and that I wanted to ask him some > questions that would not affect the result of his examination in any way. > The first question I ask is, "Can you give me some example of a diamagnetic > substance?" > "No." > Then I asked, "If this book was made of glass, and I was looking at > something on the table through it, what would happen to the image if I > tilted the glass?" > "It would be deflected, sir, by twice the angle that you've turned the > book." > I said, "You haven't got it mixed up with a mirror, have you?" > "No, sir!" > He had just told me in the examination that the light would be > displaced, parallel to itself, and therefore the image would move over to > one side, but would not be turned by any angle. He had even figured out how > much it would be displaced, but he didn't realize that a piece of glass is a > material with an index, and that his calculation had applied to my question. > I taught a course at the engineering school on mathematical methods in > physics, in which I tried to show how to solve problems by trial and error. > It's something that people don't usually learn, so I began with some simple > examples of arithmetic to illustrate the method. I was surprised that only > about eight out of the eighty or so students turned in the first assignment. > So I gave a strong lecture about having to actually try it, not just sit > back and watch me do it. > After the lecture some students came up to me in a little delegation, > and told me that I didn't understand the backgrounds that they have, that > they can study without doing the problems, that they have already learned > arithmetic, and that this stuff was beneath them. > So I kept going with the class, and no matter how complicated or > obviously advanced the work was becoming, they were never handing a damn > thing in. Of course I realized what it was: They couldn't do it! > One other thing I could never get them to do was to ask questions. > Finally, a student explained it to me: "If I ask you a question during the > lecture, afterwards everybody will be telling me, 'What are you wasting our > time for in the class? We're trying to learn something. And you're stopping > him by asking a question'." > It was a kind of one-upmanship, where nobody knows what's going on, and > they'd put the other one down as if they did know. They all fake that they > know, and if one student admits for a moment that something is confusing by > asking a question, the others take a high-handed attitude, acting as if it's > not confusing at all, telling him that he's wasting their time. > I explained how useful it was to work together, to discuss the > questions, to talk it over, but they wouldn't do that either, because they > would be losing face if they had to ask someone else. It was pitiful! All > the work they did, intelligent people, but they got themselves into this > funny state of mind, this strange kind of self-propagating "education" which > is meaningless, utterly meaningless! > At the end of the academic year, the students asked me to give a talk > about my experiences of teaching in Brazil. At the talk there would be not > only students, but professors and government officials, so I made them > promise that I could say whatever I wanted. They said, "Sure. Of course. > It's a free country." > So I came in, carrying the elementary physics textbook that they used > in the first year of college. They thought this book was especially good > because it had different kinds of typeface -- bold black for the most > important things to remember, lighter for less important things, and so on. > Right away somebody said, "You're not going to say anything bad about > the textbook, are you? The man who wrote it is here, and everybody thinks > it's a good textbook." > "You promised I could say whatever I wanted." > The lecture hall was full. I started out by defining science as an > understanding of the behavior of nature. Then I asked, "What is a good > reason for teaching science? Of course, no country can consider itself > civilized unless... yak, yak, yak." They were all sitting there nodding, > because I know that's the way they think. > Then I say, "That, of course, is absurd, because why should we feel we > have to keep up with another country? We have to do it for a good reason, a > sensible reason; not just because other countries do." Then I talked about > the utility of science, and its contribution to the improvement of the human > condition, and all that -- I really teased them a little bit. > Then I say, "The main purpose of my talk is to demonstrate to you that > no science is being taught in Brazil!" > I can see them stir, thinking, "What? No science? This is absolutely > crazy! We have all these classes." > So I tell them that one of the first things to strike me when I came to > Brazil was to see elementary school kids in bookstores, buying physics > books. There are so many kids learning physics in Brazil, beginning much > earlier than kids do in the United States, that it's amazing you don't find > many physicists in Brazil -- why is that? So many kids are working so hard, > and nothing comes of it. > Then I gave the analogy of a Greek scholar who loves the Greek > language, who knows that in his own country there aren't many children > studying Greek. But he comes to another country, where he is delighted to > find everybody studying Greek -- even the smaller kids in the elementary > schools. He goes to the examination of a student who is coming to get his > degree in Greek, and asks him, "What were Socrates' ideas on the > relationship between Truth and Beauty?" -- and the student can't answer. > Then he asks the student, "What did Socrates say to Plato in the Third > Symposium?" the student lights up and goes, "Brrrrrrrrr-up" -- he tells you > everything, word for word, that Socrates said, in beautiful Greek. > But what Socrates was talking about in the Third Symposium was the > relationship between Truth and Beauty! > What this Greek scholar discovers is, the students in another country > learn Greek by first learning to pronounce the letters, then the words, and > then sentences and paragraphs. They can recite, word for word, what Socrates > said, without realizing that those Greek words actually mean something. To > the student they are all artificial sounds. Nobody has ever translated them > into words the students can understand. > I said, "That's how it looks to me, when I see you teaching the kids > 'science' here in Brazil." (Big blast, right?) > Then I held up the elementary physics textbook they were using. "There > are no experimental results mentioned anywhere in this book, except in one > place where there is a ball, rolling down an inclined plane, in which it > says how far the ball got after one second, two seconds, three seconds, and > so on. The numbers have 'errors' in them -- that is, if you look at them, > you think you're looking at experimental results, because the numbers are a > little above, or a little below, the theoretical values. The book even talks > about having to correct the experimental errors -- very fine. The trouble > is, when you calculate the value of the acceleration constant from these > values, you get the right answer. But a ball rolling down an inclined plane, > if it is actually done, has an inertia to get it to turn, and will, if you > do the experiment, produce five-sevenths of the right answer, because of the > extra energy needed to go into the rotation of the ball. Therefore this > single example of experimental 'results' is obtained from a fake experiment. > Nobody had rolled such a ball, or they would never have gotten those > results! > "I have discovered something else," I continued. "By flipping the pages > at random, and putting my finger in and reading the sentences on that page, > I can show you what's the matter -- how it's not science, but memorizing, in > every circumstance. Therefore I am brave enough to flip through the pages > now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show > you." > So I did it. Brrrrrrrup -- I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: > "Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are > crushed..." > I said, "And there, have you got science? No! You have only told what a > word means in terms of other words. You haven't told anything about nature > -- what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. > Did you see any student go home and try it? He can't. > "But if, instead, you were to write, 'When you take a lump of sugar and > crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some > other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called > "triboluminescence." ' Then someone will go home and try it. Then there's an > experience of nature." I used that example to show them, but it didn't make > any difference where I would have put my finger in the book; it was like > that everywhere. > Finally, I said that I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by > this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to > pass exams, but nobody knows anything. "However," I said, "I must be wrong. > There were two Students in my class who did very well, and one of the > physicists I know was educated entirely in Brazil. Thus, it must be possible > for some people to work their way through the system, bad as it is." > Well, after I gave the talk, the head of the science education > department got up and said, "Mr. Feynman has told us some things that are > very hard for us to hear, but it appears to be that he really loves science, > and is sincere in his criticism. Therefore, I think we should listen to him. > I came here knowing we have some sickness in our system of education; what I > have learned is that we have a cancer!" -- and he sat down. > That gave other people the freedom to speak out, and there was a big > excitement. Everybody was getting up and making suggestions. The students > got some committee together to mimeograph the lectures in advance, and they > got other committees organized to do this and that. > Then something happened which was totally unexpected for me. One of the > students got up and said, "I'm one of the two students whom Mr. Feynman > referred to at the end of his talk. I was not educated in Brazil; I was > educated in Germany, and I've just come to Brazil this year." > The other student who had done well in class had a similar thing to > say. And the professor I had mentioned got up and said, "I was educated here > in Brazil during the war, when, fortunately, all of the professors had left > the university, so I learned everything by reading alone. Therefore I was > not really educated under the Brazilian system." > I didn't expect that. I knew the system was bad, but 100 percent -- it > was terrible! > Since I had gone to Brazil under a program sponsored by the United > States Government, I was asked by the State Department to write a report > about my experiences in Brazil, so I wrote out the essentials of the speech > I had just given. I found out later through the grapevine that the reaction > of somebody in the State Department was, "That shows you how dangerous it is > to send somebody to Brazil who is so naive. Foolish fellow; he can only > cause trouble. He didn't understand the problems." Quite the contrary! I > think this person in the State Department was naive to think that because he > saw a university with a list of courses and descriptions, that's what it > was. > _______________________________________________ > Logica-l mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.dimap.ufrn.br/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/logica-l > -- http://sequiturquodlibet.googlepages.com/ _______________________________________________ Logica-l mailing list [email protected] http://www.dimap.ufrn.br/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/logica-l
