Chapter 5 - The Necessity of Reactions

My sense of this chapter is that James admonishes teachers to make a lasting impression on students by involving them in participatory activities which will prepare them for the working world. Even if some of these activities do not have direct relationships with things the student will do later in life, such as taking notes or writing essays, these activities engender an intellectual discipline which will shape future attitudes and behaviors.

One passage gave me a bit of trouble:

[Presumably of these activities] "...They confer precision; because, if you are doing a thing, you must do it definitely right or definitely wrong" (p. 18).

How do you think this passage hold up to todays constructivist epistemologies? In other words, how many things that we want students to learn at higher levels of discourse behold such absolutism? Aren't we supposed to be in the business (at least at times) of ill-structured learning domains?