Over a century ago, the noted philosopher, educator, mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) declared that the education universities, colleges, schools were providing was "dead, barren, lifeless, useless," and "full of mental dry rot."  His complaint was that such institutions were teaching facts and only facts, unrelated to either life or to the field in which the facts were embedded. Memorization was the one and only way to "learn," and for him that was not learning.

In order to keep knowledge alive, Whitehead proposed that we in education teach only a "few ideas," and "main ones," and that we "throw these ideas into every combination possible."  This suggestion was then, and still is not a radical one; albeit an eminently sensible one, especially as we struggle in our post-modern world to find a viable way to educate.  Whitehead's suggestion involved looking upon education as having stages or periods: one of romance (playing with ideas), and one of precision (exactness), one of generalization (abstracting general principles).

The paper itself suggests that interplay of these three stages or periods--play, precision, principles--can be useful guides for those writing to devise curriculum designs and instructional  a century after Whitehead first made his proposal.

This paper explores each of the stages and their interrelationship.

The paper ends with an examination of Whitehead's worry about "too good teaching," and with suggestions for what Whitehead has to offer teachers today.