The approved curriculum gave conventional wisdom a full page: teach the principle, then let students implement it. (curriculum: course of study, educational program, study program; conventional wisdom: received opinion, common belief, received wisdom; implement: carry out, execute, apply) Miss Gray preferred experiential lessons. (experiential: experience-based, firsthand, hands-on) Every Thursday her bookish class took a broken clock to a retired repairer. (bookish: studious, scholarly, learned) An inspector inclined toward orthodox methods arrived to observe a particularly noisy morning. (inclined: disposed, minded, willing; orthodox: conventional, traditional, established)
Gray asked him to educe the rule for matching gears from the three wheels on the table. (educe: elicit, extract, derive) He could recite the principle but could hardly incorporate it into the movement before him. (incorporate: include, integrate, combine) A diffident girl handed him a chalk stub. (diffident: shy, hesitant, unassuming) She was too engrossed to notice his rank. (engrossed: absorbed, immersed, rapt)
The inspector's report acknowledged the merit of the exercise. (merit: worth, value, excellence) He had expected an intellectual diversion. (intellectual: mental, cerebral, cognitive) Instead he took home a working clock. On Thursday he returned with his watch and a written request to integrate the workshop into the timetable. (integrate: combine, incorporate, unite) The girl made him draw his own diagram again.