Andrew Lentvorski wrote: > Bob La Quey wrote: > >> The real issues are IMHO cognitive and may well get wired >> pretty early on (Mother Duck Syndrome.) For an example see >> >> http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn10689-what-you-speak-may-affect-what-you-hear.html >> >> >> BobLQ "My problem with Spanish is a I do not hear it well." > > Ooooo, this is one of my favorite topics. > > I'm in the school that our brains are more plastic than we give them > credit for. > > My opinion is that we hurt the ability of our brains to learn new things > because we change the mechanisms for reinforcements. > > In terms of reinforcements, we give small children *huge* amounts of > external reinforcement for even the smallest achievements. A couple > incomprehensible words, scribbles on paper, etc. > > This is a good thing. So why do we make things so hard for adults?
One of the points made in one of the many TED presentations that blq posted was that we let young children learn to a large extent by themselves, without encouragement but not too much interference by us. But suddenly at age 5 (or so) we tell them to stop doing that -- from now on they will learn by /being taught/ -- learning the old way is (mostly) no longer tolerated! The talk was nicely illustrated by examples of Bonobo apes learning (cultural things like language/communication, tool making/using) by the [umm] monkey-see-monkey-do method. > > An adult learning a new language or drawing skills or anything else has > a *HUGE* step function from internalized motivation until external > praise occurs. We're talking the need to get through *years* of what a > child would go through before even the first peep of praise. > > That is hugely demotivating to 99% of the people on the planet. > > We, on this list, have *very* high internal motivation and reward systems. > > I'm not a fan of "self-esteem" praise. However, a little acknowledgment > to people for how much they have improved would probably go a long way. > > Several of the best teachers of dance and music I have had all did the > same thing with their students, they *recorded* them at the beginning > and at regular intervals. When they reviewed these, it was important to > *watch an old one first*. > > Maybe it's all about psychological framing, but the first time I had > that done to me it had a *huge* impact. It's *palpable* how much you > improved. The teacher gets to sit down and catalogue everything that > improved in a fairly objective way. > > The reinforcement is amazing. Suddenly, all the hard work becomes > concrete. Regards, ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
