On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 2:19 PM, KDianne Stephens <[email protected]> wrote: > ...This specific option > was offered for the folks who were reporting the use of much verbal > discourse in teaching mountain folds and students having trouble with same.
Since I cannot seem to stop myself from being perturbed that what I wrote must not have come across as intended, I must add a small clarification, here: My intentions in all of the stuff I was writing about diagramming, and about teaching, had nothing whatsoever to do with mountain folds specifically being harder to teach (I don't find them to be) or requiring more verbal or written descriptions (ditto); nor about them being harder to diagram; nor was any of it about students having trouble specifically with mountain folds, or with the verbal or other descriptions of them in classes. In the diagramming discussion, the important thing I was attempting to talk about was *distinguishing between the two types of folds* (since both are almost always present) to provide maximum visual clarity in the drawings. To my mind, having two different arrows, used slightly differently to represent the different directions of motion, accomplishes this nicely. (Upon further pondering, I realized that my brain has actually been trained pretty well to respond to the different arrows and their accompanying creases as an aid to visualizing the 3D movement of the real object in your hands. Without those different arrows, the diagram does not "pop" into 3D quite as easily for me. But then, I am an extremely visual thinker, so your mileage may vary considerably!) In the teaching discussion, what I meant to be talking about were the students' own differing perceptions of what they were actually doing while folding a given step: making a crease [advanced student], or moving a flap or aligning something (corner, edge, crease) with something else [novice]. The direction of crease or flap motion was immaterial. While I like the idea of teaching silently (it often happens to me when I'm teaching overseas and don't have the words to explain a move!) in my experience, anyway, bringing a student to this particular "aha! I'm actually *making this crease*" moment requires an explanation - they have to think *about* folding, not *fold* - and it seems to me that's going to require words. All that said, I'm delighted that this little observation was useful to some of you and sparked some conversation! Introducing it as a side topic in my classes has made a real difference in my own origami teaching. Obligatory-actually talking-about-folding-something-lest-we-drift-too-far-away-comment: I'm super-psyched to be heading out early next week to go to the 19th Tanteidan Convention in Tokyo, followed by the 4th Korea Origami Convention in Seoul. I've gotten permission to teach Alvarez & Bas's "Conspirador," a really fun piece. (Photo here: http://gofoldsomething.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/bas-and-alvarezs-conspirador-conspirator/ in my once-again-neglected blog. Well, I'll try to get some new stuff up there from my trip when I get back!) Back to the packing frenzy, Anne
