Happy Birthday Comenius

If John Amos Comenius were alive today he'd be 430 years old, and he being called the "Father of Modern Education" one would hope we'd have learned a few things, particularly about how learning works.

Jimi Hendrix had a song that asked the question, "Are you experienced?" And while Jimi may have been referring to either sex or drug use, Comenius asked the same in his request that schooling rely on actual experience as the basis of learning.

"The ground of this business is, that sensual (sensuous) objects be rightly presented to the senses for fear that they not be received. I say, and say it again aloud, that this is the foundation of all the rest; because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless we first rightly understand all the things which are to be done and whereof we have to speak. Now there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses. And therefore to exercise the senses well about the right perceiving of the differences of things will be to lay the grounds for wisdom and all wise discourse, and all discreet actions in one's course of life, which, because it is commonly neglected in schools, and the things that are to be learned are offered to scholars without their being understood or being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass that the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward and offereth little benefit."

Make, fix and create...