Education: Little Game

Nobody but Einstein and a few other people can understand what goes on in the mind of Nobel Prizewinning atom-smasher Enrico Fermi. But one Fermi theory is intelligible to all, and last week 192 students at the University of Chicago were enjoying its practice. The theory: that elementary science courses must be well taught if students are to do well in advanced classes. At Chicago, for the first time in about 15 years of teaching in Italy and the U.S., Dr. Fermi was teaching an elementary physics class himself.

Said he: “One must take more time preparing. I have small puzzles sometimes finding a way to present something so they [immature students] can understand, and this little game I find most interesting. . . . I look into their faces and if I see more bewilderment than one usually finds in the faces of young students at 8:30 a.m., then I begin all over. . . .”