Re: Supporting vs stifling curiosity

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 9:27 -0500 2/11/02, Robert Cohen wrote:
> P.S. Unfortunately, sometimes this lesson is learned a bit too early I
> think.  My son is in second grade.  The class was discussing the way water
> goes down the drain, so my son observed the water going down all the drains
> in the house over several days (weeks...months...) and concluded that it
> goes down both ways (clockwise and counterclockwise).  His teacher said he
> was wrong - it always goes down counterclockwise.  He has come to the
> conclusion (with my help) that perhaps the teacher has mistakenly thought
> that since the wind in a hurricane is always counterclockwise (in the NH),
> the water in the drain must likewise drain counterclockwise.
It would appear that the teacher has fallen into the Aristotelian
trap of assuming that it must be so since everyone thinks it is,
without having to actually observe the real world to see for oneself.
This is certainly something that can be readily observed much more
easily than the various anatomical errors that were attributed to
Aristotle (rightly or wrongly).

It's too bad that a second grader is placed in the position of
challenging, and possibly embarassing the teacher, and sealing his
doom in that class. I wouldn't blame the child at all for just
sitting down an shutting up; the teacher has placed him in a no-win
situation. How much better it would be if the teacher took the tack
that she (?) had always heard that it would be always CCW, but had
never checked it for herself, why not do an experiment? Then, when
the experiment shows the child to be right, the teacher can admit to
it without losing face before the class, and the child has had a very
positive learning experience (not a scientific one--that had been
done during his long period of observation--but a social one).

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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