Exactly so. When every teacher can learn from students how to help them learn, we will make a great advance in education, and in treating children better more generally.
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 00:06, K. K. Subramaniam <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wednesday 24 February 2010 05:53:26 am Edward Cherlin wrote: >> On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 11:42, K. K. Subramaniam <[email protected]> wrote: >> > On Tuesday 23 February 2010 09:13:59 pm Edward Cherlin wrote: >> >>We also know that simply asking the question and making careful >> >>observations also gives astonishing results, as, for example, in the >> >>careers of Maria Montessori and Jean Piaget. Also Jerome Bruner >> >> >> > Yes. But these people followed the child. Jean Piaget discovered that >> > children in the 2-7 age group do not comprehend conservation of quantity >> > or use logical thinking. Children don't come with fast forward buttons >> > :-). >> >> It is easy to demonstrate what children are capable of, when you can >> see them do it. It is much harder to demonstrate what they are not >> capable of, or what some can do but not others, or what is dependent >> on development or prior experience. > Maria Droujkova pointed out earlier that conservation of small quantities is > innate. We also find this in birds and mammals. If you hide a few M&Ms from a > packet of 10, most first graders can figure out how many you "stole" by > looking > into the remaining ones. Symbolic arithmetic is not required. But what happens > when quantities have no simple imagery; say 10,000? The conceptual structures > required to deal with such quantities and generalizing them using symbols > (stones/seeds) take time to develop. > > I am not an expert in child learning and I will defer the larger question to > the practicing teachers and researchers. As community volunteers, our > challenge in large scale education is not so much in deciding what children > are capable of (or not) but in setting up an environment where each child can > follow his/her own learning curve. I don't rule out the necessity for guidance > but the assistance needs to be tuned and timed to the immediate needs of the > child. To me, software like Etoys is interesting not because it is blackboard > for lessons but because it is a blank paper for children to express what they > know. I have had many teachers tell me that they got a much better idea of > their students' capabilities after seeing their independent Etoys projects, so > now they could tune their lessons effectively. It inverts the conventional > model where the teachers tells the child to one where the child tells the > teacher, "This is what I know. Will you now help me reach the next level?" > > Subbu > -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://www.earthtreasury.org/ _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
