Re:the nature of students

[William Beaty <billb@eskimo.com>]

On Sat, 6 Sep 1997, Hugh Haskell wrote:

> Let me suggest another possible reason why students do not interact with
> the real world as much as they used to: complexity. They now grow up in
> homes that have such complex devices, including their toys that they either
> don't dare or aren't allowed to take them apart to see why they work.

I'd say that it's not complexity that's the problem.  Taking apart old
products is a prime method of exploring the world.  Kids who do this early
in their lives grow up to be very different than kids who don't.  Reading
is another method of exploring, and again there is a very big difference
between reading and non-reading kids. 

Has complexity really changed things that much?  Yes, cars are different,
but if I took apart a tube-amp record player in 1940, wouldn't I be just
as baffled as if I did the same with a VCR today?  And if I couldn't make
it work afterwards, wouldn't I catch just as much hell?  Both VCRs and
record-changers (if partially working) are full of cool mechanisms.  In my
opinion the VCRs are more fascinating, and are the source of many more
creativity-inspiring weird parts.

If I had to point to a reason why kids aren't curious, I'd look at what
makes *me* less curious than usual, and then assume that most other people
are subject to the same forces. 

The prime anti-curiousity force in my life is TV.  If I watch a lot of TV,
I feel like I've been out doing important things, that I've reaped some
accomplishment, that I've used time productivly.  Therefor I don't go
looking for such things in the real world.  If I turn off the TV for a
week, I'm immediately dazzled by how little has recently been happening in
my world, and how little I've been actually doing on my own.  I'm
embarassed to find that my perception of "accomplishment" and
"productivity" were mostly illusory.  After a short while without TV I'll
get ambitious (or bored) and start chasing pastimes which give REAL
accomplishment and have REAL importance.

TV isn't the devil though.  I've seen friends lives eaten by continuous
reading of romance novels, adventure gaming, music, etc.  There are all
sorts of traps which give an illusory sense of accomplishment, and they've
always been around in some form.  I think that the changes in people (and
students) over time are not due to what the environment offers so much as
due to changes in society's idea of what is acceptable.  If most kids saw
TV (etc.) as a waste of time, then society would be full of kids out doing
interesting things in the real world.  (I find it self-referentially
hilarious that, in the future world of Star Trek, there is no TV!  Maybe a
few people will get the message that if you want to have the adventurous
life of a future space explorer, then that ol' TV set must go...) 

The recent push to have parents read to their kids is one good cure to the
numb-yourself tendency which our society promotes.  Let me suggest
another: 

    Take our kids to garage sales to buy old junk to take apart!

The less-complicated toys and gizmos are still around, you just have to
get out to neighborhood estate sales more often.  And if the device is old
and half-dead, then there is no fear of breaking a valuable item.

......................uuuu / oo \ uuuu........,.............................
William Beaty  voice:206-781-3320   bbs:206-789-0775    cserv:71241,3623
EE/Programmer/Science exhibit designer        http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/
Seattle, WA 98117  billb@eskimo.com           SCIENCE HOBBYIST web page