CARL GOMBRICH - BLOG

The work of Fernand Gobet and Herbert Simon seems to indicate that expertise is ‘domain specific’. That is, you can only learn to be an expert or have mastery in a well-defined area or discipline. This is a challenge to someone who would like to argue for the value of a more general and interdisciplinary type of education for some students. Expertise is good, right? Graduates should have expertise. So how can we show that we are training habits of mind which are powerful and

This blog should be read with its companion: Being Serious One of the fun things about being part of the ‘knowledge revolution’  is that we get to reclaim words; we get to look afresh at stuff which went out of fashion or, perhaps more than ever in history, we get to make up neologisms and attach them to all sorts of new and composite ideas. I’ve enjoyed making a pitch to reclaim generalism, giving the word new clothes, a new power and a new rationale. Generalism makes a lot

I feel at risk once again of getting sucked into the discipline of interdisciplinarity, prompted this time by some excellent articles on such things published by colleagues of mine. But I resist. I want to stay as an outsider, to try to see things continually afresh. Of course the danger is that one ends up re-doing what has been done before or missing a trick or a short-cut that could save time or help students out. But we have to trust that I and my team can bring at least