Process 1

Exactly the same must be said about the contention that the earth and planets revolve around the sun. The validation and acceptance of this view marked a major turning point in our intellectual history and in our collective view of man's place in the universe. Although the basis on which this view is held is more subtle and complex than that for the illumination of the moon, the "How do we know...?" should be an intrinsic part of general education; it is, for most people, however, received knowledge—as is also the view that matter is discrete in its structure rather than continuous.

Similar questions should be asked and addressed in other disciplines: How does the historian come to know how the Egyptians, or Babylonians, or Athenians lived? On what basis does the text make these assertions concerning consequences of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes? What is the evidence for the claim that such and such tax and monetary policies promote economic stability? What is the basis for acceptance of the doctrine of separation of church and state in our political system?

Cognitive development researchers [e.g., Anderson (1980); Lawson (1982)] describe two principal classes of knowledge: figurative or declarative on the one hand, and operative or procedural on the other. Declarative knowledge consists of knowing "facts" (matter is composed of atoms and molecules; animals breathe oxygen and expel carbon dioxide; the United States entered the Second World War after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941). Operative knowledge involves understanding where the declarative knowledge comes from or what underlies it (What is the evidence that the structure of matter is discrete rather than continuous? What do we mean by the terms "oxygen" and "carbon dioxide" and how do we recognize these as different substances? What worldwide political and economic events underlay the American declaration of war?). And operative knowledge also involves the capacity to use, apply, transform, or recognize the relevance of declarative knowledge in new situations.

"Above all things," says Alfred North Whitehead in a well-known passage on the first page of The Aims of Education, "we must beware of what I will call 'inert ideas'-that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations." And John Gardner once deplored our tendency "to hand our students the cut flowers while forbidding them to see the growing plants."

Preschool children almost always ask "How do we know...? Why do we believe...?" questions until formal education teaches them not to. Most high school and college students then have to be pushed, pulled, and cajoled into posing and examining such questions; they do not do so spontaneously. Rather, our usual pace of assignments and methods of testing all too frequently drive students into memorizing end results, rendering each development inert. Yet given time and encouragement, the habit of inquiry can be cultivated, the skill enhanced, and the satisfaction of understanding conveyed. The effect would be far more pronounced and development far more rapid if this demand were made deliberately and simultaneously in science, humanities, history, and social science courses rather than being left to occur sporadically, if at all, in one course or discipline.