The Gospel According to Roger Schank

Roger Schank, the Brooklyn-born head of Northwestern University's ILS (Institute for Learning Sciences), is one of the more colorful figures in the AI community, perhaps known as much for his blunt speech as for his work in education, cognitive science, AI, and creativity. Schank is a persuasive critic of school systems everywhere. Children and adults, he argues, learn best when they receive information at the moment they need it. This makes classroom learning an oxymoron by Schank's standards. In a class of 25, a teacher who answers one student's question is wasting the time of the other 24, because the information being given is not what they need at that moment.

Schank calls the traditional mode of education by computer ``the page-turning architecture'' and the reason most educational software today is devoid of excitement or educational value. For the most part, the current model of learning sees the student as a kind of sponge, willing and able to soak up whatever material is presented, regardless of whether it is perceived as interesting or useful. Provision for individual learning styles is missing, and there is no hint that learning can be exciting, or that making mistakes might be a better way of learning.

Schank has a vastly different view of how people learn: They learn by doing, making mistakes, and having experts share experiences to show people what has gone wrong. To test his theories of how people actually learn, remember, and reason, Schank founded ILS in 1989, with sponsorship by Andersen Consulting, one of two business units of The Arthur Andersen Worldwide Organization, which is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ILS's mission is to create innovative, computer-based learning environments based on leading-edge research in cognitive science and AI. ILS employs some 1 60 professional staff and graduate students.

Unlike some of his academic colleagues, who have shunned commercialization of their work, Schank doesn't mince words when he's asked about Andersen Consulting's sponsorship of ILS. Instead, Schank quotes notorious thief Willie Sutton who, when asked why he robbed banks, is reported to have replied, ``That's where the money is.''