Ken Kahn (kenkahn@toontalk.com)
Mon, 5 Jul 1999 14:49:16 -0700
From: "Ken Kahn" <kenkahn@toontalk.com> Subject: Re: Roger Schank's keynote at NECC Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 14:49:16 -0700
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I was glad to see the posting of a good summary of Roger Schank's NECC
keynote. I was there and found it very interesting, entertaining, and
thought provoking. I agreed with much of it except his attack on algebra
which was really more generally an attack against math. He also said he
thought no one should be taught calculus unless it was needed while learning
physics or economics. His vision of an ideal physics or biology class was
very applied and connected to everyday life. There seemed to be no room for
curiosity in his vision. When I was in elementary school I found learning
about evolution or the big bang or anti-matter to be very interesting. I
think small children are interested in big questions about how the universe
began and where did people come from and the like. It is only that too many
of them lose this interest over time - probably because of school.
Schank's distaste for math and theory are very evident. While I wouldn't
advocate forcing children to learn algebra, I sure would encourage it - both
because it is sometimes useful and because it is interesting in its own
right. The danger in following his suggestion that schools don't teach math
and theoretical subjects is that these students may end up needing it
without knowing enough of what they don't know to know what they need to
learn. Consider, for example, a teenager who is trying to make a video game.
They want their game to take place inside a 3D world. But they don't even
know what linear algebra is and hence are either completely confused or push
ahead in a very ad hoc and ineffective manner.
My other disappointment in his talk was that, while he elegantly attacked
attempts to fill students with loads of facts, and pointed to a future where
students could do some critical thinking, learn to problem solve using some
nice technology, and pick up facts in a natural painless manner, he
neglected to mention how much learning happens when constructing things
(construtivism and constructionism just weren't mentioned).
-ken kahn (www.toontalk.com)
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