Re: [Phys-l] abstractions

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

Wes Davis wrote:

>     the key word here is 
> "bright".  What group are we talking about here?  Those who are bright 
> enough to make the kinds of distinctions John is talking about?  Are the 
> students John describes here typical of those with whom he interacts?  The 
> young people John describes make up the top 5% or so of MY HS.    Are those 
> the students who have difficulty abstracting?  My goodness!
>
>    With all due respect, how often do those of you on this list interact 
> with *average* HS students?  I know John to be an exceedingly bright man.  I 
> would argue that this makes it even more difficult for him to imagine what 
> it's like NOT to be able to abstract. 

The anecdote I reported earlier is not my only evidence.

Once upon a time, I designed electronic games.  If I had believed the
"research" so often quoted on this list, I would have "known" that
it is impossible for typical kids to play football on a grid of
27 red lights.  Doing so would require them to have imagination
and the ability to form abstractions.  It would require them to
let one thing stand for another thing, even though the two things
are not exactly the same (or, in this case, not even remotely the
same).  We're not talking about "fluid flow"="momentum flow" now;
we're talking about "red dot"=ball and "other red dot"=rusher.

I know rather precisely how many of those games were sold.  I also
know (somewhat less precisely) that the vast majority of kids over the
age of 8 have plenty enough powers of abstraction to be able to enjoy
the game.

It's a good game, not because of how smart I am, or how ultra-sophisticated
the software is.  I assure you the code is not very sophisticated.  The
prototype version fit in 3 kilobytes on a low-power microprocessor, and
the production version was even smaller.

Why is it a good game?  Not because of my intelligence, but because I
respected the intelligence of the kids.  I can't *make* anybody have
a good time.  All I can do is provide the barest opportunity for them
to turn loose their imagination, so as to have a good time mostly of
their own making.

The "research" says you can't play football on 27 little red lights.
I know better.


Richard Tarara wrote in part:

> > While everyone wants to bitch about NCLB, the number one fault I would
> > place on the whole enterprise is that it places almost zero responsibility
> > on the students and consequently almost zero consequences upon them for
> > what must be accepted as a personal responsibility--to become educated
> > citizens of the country/world.

Yeah.

A tangentially-related observation:

Those who teach based on the assumption that the kids have no imagination, no
curiosity, and no powers of abstraction, will find that the kids live up(?) to
expectations.

I expect more from people ... and I often get it.