[IAEP] Physics - Lesson plans ideas?

[Maria Droujkova]

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 12:23 PM, Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  Hi Asaf
>
> Among other things, our human brains are set up by nature to
>  -- take the world as it seems
>  -- want to learn the culture around us
>  -- believe (and then try to justify our beliefs)
>  -- especially believe our tribes, from family outwards
>  -- think of most things in terms of stories
>  -- disappear our beliefs into a "normal" which makes it difficult to think
> in other terms
>  -- desire explanations, but be satisfied with stories as answers
>

Early massive exposure to social media can reset some of these defaults. The
main change is the shift from THE culture to hundreds and thousands of
cultures, with corresponding meta-reflection on cultural beliefs. Kids in
their tween years and older, especially more word-savvy girls, pick on
differences in stories, worldviews and beliefs of different cultures in
different social sites. They are very aware of differences in what is
"normal" in different communities, and of abilities of outsiders or enemies
to deconstruct "mere stories" for aggression (snark, flame wars) or simply
for the fun of it. There are sophisticated vocabularies supporting these
endeavors, lists of relevant concepts, acceptable and unacceptable argument
techniques and so on.


We need something more like:
>
> -- the world is not as it seems
> -- our culture's views likely have nothing much to do with how the universe
> is set up
> -- think instead of believe
> -- especially be careful of our tribal pulls to believe like them
> -- most interesting things are not stories and can't be judged by story
> criteria
> -- have to fight the invisibility of "normal"
> -- we need to be super tough about what we provisionally accept as
> explanations for anything
>
> Most parents and teachers I've explained this to are shocked. It's so
> anti-social and rebellious! This is the last thing most of them want to help
> their children achieve. (And they are so successful.)
>

People who grow up with assumed social pluralism won't be as shocked,
though. Science principles match the new social order of the "massively
multiplayer" community scene pretty well.

Cheers,
Maria Droujkova

Make math your own, to make your own math.

http://www.naturalmath.com social math site
http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/ Math 2.0 interest group
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