[Wittrs] Re: Debating with Functional Programmers
- From: "kirby_urner" <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:56:39 -0000
--- In WittrsAMR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "kirby_urner" <wittrsamr@> wrote:
>
>
> > In between New Math and what gets ridiculed as New New Math was the
> > rise and fall of intervening schools of thought. Constructivism,
> > constructionism... you know the ones. The Math Wars plays out daily,
> > in mostly ritualistic fashion, the positions well known.
>
> There's a "constructivism" in mathematics education, but I'm not sure
> what that is. I don't really have a problem with Bishop's
> constructivism in mathematics. It's an interesting alternative
> approach to math, though perhaps I see it as something like doing math
> with both hands tied behind your back. But when some constructivists
> go all religious about it, and argue that everything else is wrong -
> that's when I begin to see them as a bit nutty.
>
In the Math Wars, constructivism is usually associated with Piaget,
and then a set of practices wherein students are supposed to
"construct their own concepts", meaning more emphasis on active
learning, less passive receiving of "direct instruction".
The traditionalists decry constructivism as encouraging kids to waste
too much time trying to reinvent every wheel, as if centuries of
heritage could spring ab initio from the individual, as if
"understanding" addition required inventing one's own algorithm for
doing it.
I do think constructivists tend to glorify and romanticize child
prodigies quite a bit, many of them having been prodigies themselves
and still nursing grudges against the many authoritarian teachers who
only interfered with their genius. In retrospect, they want to set
things up for coming generations such that gifted students such as
themselves get more freedom to self school, even if in a classroom
context a lot of the time.
I'm sympathetic insofar as I think we have many styles of learner
out there, and "child prodigy" is one of them (really too generic a
label -- plus I'm not an early childhood development specialist,
like my neighbor Laurie Todd).
Direct instruction is not a terrible thing, especially if you're
pawing through Youtube, taking control over sampling. Catching a live
performance is great too -- lecture culture is a lot like music
culture, and in some venues, we mix them (e.g. Prairie Home
Companion).
Kirby
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