[Phys-L] Re: Piaget

[jbellina <jbellina@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

Thanks for your comments Jack.  Thinking about your answer to my
"pinching your nose" has given me an opportunity focus my thinking.
See below.
On Sep 3, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Jack Uretsky wrote:

> Hi Joe-
>         That was only one of a very large number.  Your argument
> against
> this author being out of his field would also apply to Piaget.  And
> would
> you revoke all the Physics Nobels that were given to non-
> physicists?  That
> part of your comment is, I'm afraid, ad hominem.

I don't think it is ad hominem, since I don't know the person well
enough to attack him...it is more like profiling, as in racial
profiling.  Let me spin it a different way.  There are folks out
there from places I know and respect that say that as children grow,
the ways in which they analyze changes, and that given the right
curricular framework, you can enhance the development of children.
So when some person, with a degree in biology, from  school in the
California system...that has lots of well know and prestigious
institutions...that is clearly less prestigious, says that Piaget is
wrong because he got the ages when change occurs wrong, and further
that we should use our authority in the classroom to tell students
what they should know....I'm sorry I just don't find it very credible.
Who cares if the ages are not what Piaget claimed...that is not the
issue, and to make that claim is miss the point.

>         When it comes to credibility, what you refer to as a "logical
> trick" is not a trick at all.  When a researcher fakes one bit of
> research, then all of that researcher's work becomes suspect.  I've
> been
> told that there is substantial literature to the effect that Piaget
> "dry-labbed" a lot of his results.  Until now, I've never been
> sufficiently interested to investifate the claim.  Perhaps others
> on this
> list, with a stronger interest in the truth of the matter, will
> look into
> it further and report back.

That is a very serious claim...and amounts to libel if it is not
true.  I would be very careful to investigate it for yourself before
you say such a thing, or even worse write it in a place that will
never go away...these emails will persist on someones hard drive
forever.

Let  me speak to the issue of "fakes one bit".  We all generally
agree that Millikan did a nice job of measuring the charge of the
electron, yes?  Well, if you know the history of science literature,
you find that he was selective in the way he used his data...indeed
in some sense all experimentalists do that went they choose what
results to consider..  I can't speak for the theorists.
>         I'm introducing this topic because I learned at UIC, when I
> got a
> high school teaching certificate, that Piaget's work has never
> stood up to
> close scrutiny.  Textbooks in the '80's began referring to Neo-Piaget
> approaches.  Someone on this list once referred me to Edelstein's work
> which showed by way of counter-example, that Piaget stages (as
> determined
> by tests) were, at best, transient and, at worst, non reproducible.
>         This is not to say that I find Piaget totally incredible.
> I've
> played sith small children and seen some support for the kind of
> thinking
> described by Piaget.  But the existence of some supporting evidence
> is not
> enough to make the case.

All of this has led me to a new insight for me...surely someone has
said it before.

There has been an ongoing debate in higher education about the mix of
teaching and research.  Whether for example you have to do research
to be a good teacher.  Surely in upper division courses, a knowledge
of the leading edge of scientific knowledge is useful, but in
introductory courses that seems less necessary.  On the other hand
the higher ed reward system favors people who focus on research and
pay little heed to their teaching, so good research people might tend
to be poor teachers...thats been the problem in so many of the intro
courses in major research universities.

It seems to me that research plays another important role.  It is
really hard to learn something new at a deep level...ie understanding
as opposed to memorizing.  That is what happens when in the research
environment or when my pre-service teachers learn science using
McDermott''s PBI material.  When a teacher forgets how hard it is to
learn, they lose contact with their students, or they enter into
dance with the students in which little is taught and little is
learned.  In my workshops for in-service teachers, they are stunned
by how hard it is to navigate the PBI material, so they once again
learn how hard it is to learn, and thus become better teachers.  So
it seems to me that in the higher ed environment, reseach by a
faculty member may be a necessary but not sufficient condtion for
being able to help our students learn well.  When we forget how hard
it is to learn, we begin to believe we can stand in the front of the
classroom and deliver authoritarian stuff, like the biologist you
referred to.

cheers,

joe
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