Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

            

After yoga, I had a session with K.  We continued working on spelling his name and handwriting. He was easily distracted. He has five siblings in a small house. Plus, the house is on a busy street, so I hear the traffic in the background. K wanted to get out of the session as soon as possible to get back to his video games. I've been working with him on his handwriting. He also needed help writing his name with all the letters in the correct order. He is doing better. I asked him if it made him happy to make his mom happy. Yes, on that point. Then I asked him if it made him glad to see himself do better. He responded with silence and confusion. I don't think it had ever occurred to him to be pleased or disappointed with himself.

            At 11, I had my first summer session with J in California through the Step Up Tutoring program. I hadn't figured out how to get into the Book Nook Learning site, so I used a passage from Barnell Loft's beginning 7th-grade level. It was way over his head. He was missing vocabulary as well as having trouble with the syntax. I wasn't sure if this level was still considered 7th grade. From the material I'm seeing, I think this might be regarded as high school material now.

            Here is the classic case of confronting a situation where you don't know something, and you know you don't know it. The reaction to this moment separates the men from the boys.: Was his response going to be fear or curiosity? Underlying both those feelings is confusion—our heads spin. The good learner responds with excitement, "Oh, boy. I'm about to learn something new." The poor learner responds with negative messages, "I don't know this; I must be stupid." Or "I don't know this; I am in danger."  "Danger!" you ask. You may be laughed at or ostracized if you live in a highly structured social group not knowing what others know.   Remembered, ostracization a few million years ago was a death sentence. No one could survive out in the wild alone. I told J. this was the most important lesson I had to teach him. Once he had his fear under control and viewed 'not knowing' as exciting, nothing could stop him. He would become an amazing learner.  

            I left for town once I was finished with the session. I went to Textures to order the gravestones for Mike and me. I ordered two two-by-four granite slabs. I will either get Mike's stone engraved or order a poured brass sign plate. I might order a matching brass plate for myself—question: how to add on the death date later. I suppose I could add on now. Who cares what my actual death date is. I could make it for the year 2046; I'll be 106 then. My mom died two weeks before her 96th birthday; I'm in better shape than she was at my age by a long shot. If I die sooner, who cares? If I die later, who cares? My sign plate will say:

Elizabeth Susan D. R.

December 5, 1940-  March 4, 2046

Mike's Beloved Betty

 It's that last line that has the most meaning for me. I will have his love for me carved in stone so I never forget it. Who cares what someone else thinks of that rather unusual way of putting it. 

            I'm back into getting-rid-of-stuff mode. I found twenty books for the Notre dame seminary, and I packed an old carpet and a ceiling fan into the car for donation. Guess what? Habitat didn't want either of them. They don't accept used fans and the carpet's hole makes it a loser. I had to take everything home. Scott recommended I try the secondhand shop at the dump. I planned to do that. I'd post them on Craig's list for free if that was a no-go.

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Musings:

            Dehaene went on a tear on the subject of discovery learning. He says experimentation is good, but there should be someone there to correct you immediately when you're wrong. I remember the church 'corrected' Copernicus and Galileo. Did Euclid learn Euclidian geometry from someone else who corrected him whenever he 'made an 'error" and came to a conclusion that was different than theirs?  

            Then in his chapter on Consolidation, he mentions the role of discovery over and over. There is discovering the conventional sense. Discovering the sound represented by the letter F by figuring out the first sound in the word fat. The learner can discover that on their own. 

            So we have two types of discovery: the small ones where we discover what everyone knows already, and the large ones when we see things as no one has before.  

            I have no idea why Dehaene is so bent out of shape about discovery learning. Has he been exposed to a learning situation where there was no direction, and every student was left to his own devices to rediscover the wheel? Good learning is a balance between imitating those who have gone before us and exploring new pathways, even in our own small worlds.