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This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here. Thursday, July 19, 2007 What are the kids learning? Laura left a comment on my previous post, that I read and agreed with, but then put out of my mind while I went back to processing the mountain of paperwork created by a week's inspections.But I keep thinking of what she said, and how it ties in with something Kate and I have talked about a lot lately. I had mentioned that my trainee, Lisa, complained that she wasn't used to dividing foods up the way the checklist requires us to do. Laura pointed out that "the most basic intellectual activity is to group things: same/different; compare/contrast."This is true, but it requires practice and repetition and some structured training. Our brains are hardwired to make these distinctions, but without formal education, the groupings are large and not as finely differentiated. "Me/not me; food/not food," and so on, the same kinds of distinctions that any relatively intelligent species can make. And I think they are more emphatically divided: there is no middle ground, for example, between "Me" and "Not me." If you aren't one of "Us" then you're the enemy (which may cast aspersions on the un-elected leader who likes to make that comparison).I don't know what Lisa's educational background is, but she comes from a local mountain family that probably didn't encourage anything beyond high school, and may not have thought even that was necessary. There are places in the Appalachians even now where "girls don't need no education." So she can probably be excused for having trouble putting food in more finely divided categories than just meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. In fact, she didn't really understand the distinction between fish and other seafood. I kept saying to her, "Fish have fins. All the others are things like crab, lobster, shellfish, you know." Except it was clear that she didn't know, and I'm not certain she is ever going to know it well enough to do this work. Yet she is certainly not stupid. She just, as Laura said of her acquaintance, has some real holes in her knowledge of the world.Which brings me back to what Kate and I have discussed. Kate is the most organized person I have ever met. Everything in her office has its place, and it's a logical, well-thought-out place. Not only are her file folders color-coded, but she has a printed sheet on the front of the file cabinet specifying which item goes with which color, just in case someone needs to find something when she is out of the office. Yet every time she is gone, she comes back to find piles of paper scattered across her desk, with a note from someone that they couldn't find what they were looking for. So she not only has to get it out for them, but then re-file the mess they left behind. Did they not see the explanation on the file drawer? Did they not believe it? Or did it just make no more sense to them than my explanation to Lisa of the difference between fish and other seafood?That's a scary thought, that many people nowadays are simply unable to perceive fine distinctions. I'm not certain what aspect of education is lacking. Perhaps many of them just had little exposure to a wide range of experiences as they grew up, the old "Eskimos have a hundred words for snow" example. But I worry that it's more a matter of not being taught how to think. How to make judgments, how to make comparisons, how to see the major distinctions between large groups of things, and the smaller distinctions between sub-groups. How to distinguish the stranger from the enemy, the morally wrong from the simply inadvisable, the "good for you" from the "tastes good."This concerns me a lot more than whether someone can multiply and divide without a calculator. Teaching the "fundamentals" is fine, but if kids don't know how to apply them once they're out of school, we're in trouble. And from the distance that separates us, I can hear Kate saying wryly, "You only just figured this out?"No, but I only just began to really worry about it. posted by Liz @ 9:15 AM | The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email toliz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 Feedjit Live Blog Stats
Laura left a comment on my previous post, that I read and agreed with, but then put out of my mind while I went back to processing the mountain of paperwork created by a week's inspections.But I keep thinking of what she said, and how it ties in with something Kate and I have talked about a lot lately. I had mentioned that my trainee, Lisa, complained that she wasn't used to dividing foods up the way the checklist requires us to do. Laura pointed out that "the most basic intellectual activity is to group things: same/different; compare/contrast."This is true, but it requires practice and repetition and some structured training. Our brains are hardwired to make these distinctions, but without formal education, the groupings are large and not as finely differentiated. "Me/not me; food/not food," and so on, the same kinds of distinctions that any relatively intelligent species can make. And I think they are more emphatically divided: there is no middle ground, for example, between "Me" and "Not me." If you aren't one of "Us" then you're the enemy (which may cast aspersions on the un-elected leader who likes to make that comparison).I don't know what Lisa's educational background is, but she comes from a local mountain family that probably didn't encourage anything beyond high school, and may not have thought even that was necessary. There are places in the Appalachians even now where "girls don't need no education." So she can probably be excused for having trouble putting food in more finely divided categories than just meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. In fact, she didn't really understand the distinction between fish and other seafood. I kept saying to her, "Fish have fins. All the others are things like crab, lobster, shellfish, you know." Except it was clear that she didn't know, and I'm not certain she is ever going to know it well enough to do this work. Yet she is certainly not stupid. She just, as Laura said of her acquaintance, has some real holes in her knowledge of the world.Which brings me back to what Kate and I have discussed. Kate is the most organized person I have ever met. Everything in her office has its place, and it's a logical, well-thought-out place. Not only are her file folders color-coded, but she has a printed sheet on the front of the file cabinet specifying which item goes with which color, just in case someone needs to find something when she is out of the office. Yet every time she is gone, she comes back to find piles of paper scattered across her desk, with a note from someone that they couldn't find what they were looking for. So she not only has to get it out for them, but then re-file the mess they left behind. Did they not see the explanation on the file drawer? Did they not believe it? Or did it just make no more sense to them than my explanation to Lisa of the difference between fish and other seafood?That's a scary thought, that many people nowadays are simply unable to perceive fine distinctions. I'm not certain what aspect of education is lacking. Perhaps many of them just had little exposure to a wide range of experiences as they grew up, the old "Eskimos have a hundred words for snow" example. But I worry that it's more a matter of not being taught how to think. How to make judgments, how to make comparisons, how to see the major distinctions between large groups of things, and the smaller distinctions between sub-groups. How to distinguish the stranger from the enemy, the morally wrong from the simply inadvisable, the "good for you" from the "tastes good."This concerns me a lot more than whether someone can multiply and divide without a calculator. Teaching the "fundamentals" is fine, but if kids don't know how to apply them once they're out of school, we're in trouble. And from the distance that separates us, I can hear Kate saying wryly, "You only just figured this out?"No, but I only just began to really worry about it.
The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section
RSS Feed
PERSONAL
WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT'
"If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart.
THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME
Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3
KNITTING BLOGS
Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits
FINISHED PROJECTS
SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE
POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES
BOOKS I'M READING
How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising
ARCHIVES
February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002
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