Fascinating, Joan U. I LIKE being in the company of
"artists and mad scientists" But then, I, too, was
awake 1/2 the night.       Carole H.

--- joan carol urquhart <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thank you for posting this Janet!
>
> Piaget said "To understand is to invent."
>
> Seymour Papert said
> "The normal state of thinking is to be off course
> all the time and make
> corrections."
> (in The Children's Machine)
>
> Sherry Turkle said
> "Children don't learn natural language by learning
> its rules, but through
> immersion in its cadences."
> (in Life on the Screen)
>
> The nature of the way we search for information on
> the Web
> is an exercise in intuition and in non-linear
> thinking...
> a juxtaposition of ideas out of sequence as we click
> here and there in no
> particiular order
> while surfing to (seemingly) no logical outcome,
> a right-brained what-if approach ...
> a suspension-of-judgement...
> a lets-try-this-to-see-what-happens way of thinking.
>
> This is not formal rule-driven learning behaviour.
> But it is how most creative thinkers think
> (artists and mad scientists alike...inspite of their
> education).
>
> Marshal McLuhen described electronic technologies of
> the 20th century as
> extensions of our central nervous system.
> Will the 21st century classroom / research lab be a
> wired one?
>
> Simulating thoughts from the bottom up, in the
> middle of the night.
> Joan U.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: janet paterson <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thursday, October 21, 1999 10:31 AM
> Subject: NEWS: Worth Thinking About: Learning Things
> Backwards And Forwards
>
>
> >WORTH THINKING ABOUT: LEARNING THINGS BACKWARDS AND
> FORWARDS
> >
> >"School curricula reinforce the impression that
> logical subjects like math
> and science require starting with basics and
> progressively adding more
> sophisticated conclusions and applications.
> >
> >"But the very nature of logical laws make it
> equally feasible to work
> backward from conclusions, or observations, to
> hypotheses. Deduction and
> induction are entirely complementary.
> >
> >"In reality, scientists and mathematicians do not
> do their crafts in the
> linear, progressive way their subjects are usually
> taught.
> >
> >"Practitioners commonly start with a flash of
> insight (the stereotypical
> light bulb lighting), a hunch, a dream, a guess, an
> elaborate hypothesis or
> postulate, and then work backward, forward, and
> around it to try to make it
> fit with established knowledge.
> >
> >"Physicists or engineers commonly try using complex
> mathematical gadgets to
> solve the problems that interest them without
> knowing or caring how the math
> was logically derived.
> >
> >"Experimenters tinker in laboratories and make
> surprising discoveries that
> theoreticians then labor to try to explain
> logically.
> >
> >"Alternatively, theorists like Einstein come up
> with wild new theories like
> relativity that experiments may have to struggle for
> decades to find a way
> to test and prove.
> >
> >"Scientific knowledge does not grow incrementally
> down a predictable track.
> Rather it grows volcanolike, sometimes oozing in
> patient rivulets, sometimes
> erupting in fiery ferment, and occasionally
> exploding, blowing away the rock
> of established truth.
> >
> >"Pedantic, linear teaching rarely conveys the true
> drama and mystery of the
> human quest for knowledge.
> >
> >"School plods where human imagination naturally
> leaps."
> >
> >
> >>From "School's Out," by Lewis J. Perelman;
> >you may be able to find it through
>
><http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/newsscancom/>
> >(We donate all revenue from our book
> recommendations to Literacy Action,
> >in support of adult literacy programs.)
> >
> >NewsScan Daily
> ><http://www.newsscan.com/>
> >
> >janet paterson
> >52 now / 41 dx / 37 onset
> >613 256 8340 po box 171 almonte ontario canada K0A
> 1A0
> >a new voice:
> <http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/6263/>
> ><[log in to unmask]>
> >
>


=====

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