Replying to LO28177 --
Andrew,
You commented on the wonder of At's words, then observed the following
about learning:
> Like :: "When you hear that something you do not know is like something
> you do know, you know them both." ( From the later Mohist Canons.
This is what W.W.J. Gordon repeated over and over again in my years of
work with him: in order to learn something new, we have to make a
connection inside ourselves between what we know and that which we seek to
know. then it becomes "clear."
A young pupil, whose family had no great financial means, was quiet and
withdrawn in the classroom of his grade school. Until, that is, his
teacher introduced explicit connection making to his classroom. At the
time, the students and teacher were considering topics in earth science.
Specifically, erosion.
The students were asked to compare the idea of erosion as they understood
it to some THING they knew from their personal experience. The young boy
wrote that erosion was like when the garbage outside his apartment
building stood uncollected for a long period, and it rained and rained,
and the garbage began to give way to the water so that slowly the pile
sagged and drooped and some of it washed away down the gutter to the storm
drain.
It was the first paragraph he had written, his first communication, in
several months of classroom experience.
Warm regards from the northern spring,
Barry
-- Barry Mallis The Organizational Trainer 110 Arch St., #27 Keene, NH 03431-2167 USA voice: 603 352-5289 FAX: 603 357-2157 cell: 603 313-3636 email: theorgtrainer@earthlink.netLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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