On Friday we continued our discussion about Popper and his theories. Popper’s approach to alter the historical way of knowledge acquiring also implemented a change in the social hierarchy proposed by Plato (philosophers at the top of a pyramide). In Popper’s view democracy was not to elect a government but to have the possibility to get rid of a bad government. This could only work if the respective leaders subordinated their own interests to the interests of the society. The education of pupils therefore has to serve the aim of providing the possibility for the pupils to stay within the “democratic circle” discussed a few lessons ago. Hence we should train pupils in scientific working.

The concluding discussion about Popper's scheme of the human mind should again underline the differences between traditional learning and modern approaches. While traditional teaching methods often concentrate on learning the modern problem-solving approaches invclude parts of all three areas (learning, storing, practising). But it also warns against always using the same strategies because in this case nothing would be learned.

In the second part of the lesson we were asked to come up with problem-solving-exercises that we could use in our subjects. Since I had been taught about problem-solving teaching methods in chemistry lessons it was no problem to create a task according to Popper's approach of falsifying theories. I developed a lesson about acids and bases, the pH-value and indicators. I used a similar one during my school practical course last year. In my opinion it was a quite good example but I can also understand that my classmates were a bit overburdened and maybe bored. Well, nevermind...