Learning in Depth

Learning in Depth is Egan's most radical practical proposal: assign each student a topic on their first day of school and let them study it for the next twelve years. One child gets apples. Another gets dust. Another gets circuses or bridges or birds. The student builds a portfolio, develops expertise, and — crucially — develops each kind of understanding in sequence as her engagement with the topic deepens. The mythic child treats apples through story and metaphor. The romantic adolescent pursues extremes — the largest apple ever grown, the oldest orchard, the strangest variety. The philosophic student constructs frameworks connecting horticulture, nutrition, economics, and cultural history. The ironic scholar recognizes how her accumulated expertise shapes what she can see and what she cannot.