Date: Sat, 4 Jul 1998 03:02:02 -0400 From: Tim Vanderhoek <ac199@hwcn.org> To: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au>, Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: David Caldwell <caldwell_david@hotmail.com>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Beginning user's OS (was: Here is a really odd question!!!) Message-ID: <19980704030202.A875@zappo> In-Reply-To: <19980704130033.12105@welearn.com.au>; from Sue Blake on Sat, Jul 04, 1998 at 01:00:33PM %2B1000 References: <19980703010915.6825.qmail@hotmail.com> <19980703124514.H358@freebie.lemis.com> <19980704130033.12105@welearn.com.au>
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On Sat, Jul 04, 1998 at 01:00:33PM +1000, Sue Blake wrote: [...] > more information and experiences. Could be that the strongest part of the > motivation is one of the parts that the child cannot articulate: they > want to have an interest in common with an admired adult, and perhaps by Whenever one gets into things like this it can become fairly complicated. There's an equal and, in a sense, opposite, from the above, attraction to computers. That funny looking autoexec.bat that clears the screen and prints-out in flashing red letters "Only Johnny may use this computer! If you are not Johnny, go AWAY!" can be an absolutely amazing power-trip for a kid who's probably still used to having his/her parents make his/her supper. I never asked my dad more than a few questions, but I don't think I will ever entirely forget when I asked why my program didn't work and he answered that he didn't know. The feeling of not only writing _my_own_thing_ (worthwhile on its own), but doing so at a level beyond that of my father was a pretty addictive feeling. It's kind-of like having your own bedroom that you don't have to keep clean and that you can do with whatever you want. And yet, at the same time, I'd agree that the above is mixed with a desire to have something "in common with an admired adult". > Surely children have these feelings too. If children are similar, reading > computer manuals in order to learn would be a massive turn-off for both > reading and computing. Besides that, I wouldn't point any kid at our manpages and expect them to learn how to write well. Most are artificially formal (why do people feel that using the word "which" gives their writing some kind of more formal and technical status?) and a couple are just downright bad. [Don't get me wrong! I love manpages! Just don't bother trying to learn how to write a love letter by reading manpages... ;-] > > > I am at a loss as far as my daughters math skills but any suggestions > > > there would be helpful. > > I have taught basic mathematics to adults and children who needed special Hah. I knew I smelt a teacher after the first para of your mail. Evil! Evil! Evil! ;-) I suppose it really depends what and how these math skills are lacking. Too often we teach math (and science) facts. Or, more correctly, we may teach both facts and theory, but we only test the _facts_. Parents can only judge what they're given, so naturally they encourage their kids to get high test scores. Correspondingly, kids put effort into learning these facts. This is something that stays with them for a long time. There are few things more beautiful than hearing someone say with delight "Oh, I get it! That's so cool!" when they finally _understand_ something (especially if they happen to be particularly sexy ;). At the same time, it's altogether frightening that this is a novel experience for someone who is almost 20 years old. In grade three they might be teaching long division. Put one number here, put one number there. So long as this number is bigger than that number, keep on writing numbers up there. Anything left is the remainder. Well, WTF is the remainder!?! How many students even know that, in _real_world_ terms, let alone why the process as a whole works?? Basically, the fact that this young girl is lacking some math skills (where "skills" probably equates to "marks") may be quite unimportant. I don't have enough information to judge in this case. :-) :-) Essentially, I agree with you [Sue], but I don't think that an evaluation solely in terms of success vs. failure entirely does justice to the topic. -- This .sig is not innovative, witty, or profund. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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