Semantic Stopsigns

[Robert Link]

CoCos,

A wonderful essay I'm reading at
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/08/semantic-stopsi.html offers the
term, "Semantic Stopsign", a concept beyond which folks stop inquiry.
It's a wonderful read so far, and I'm thinking there may be reason to
recruit one of more of these folks. Thoughts?

rl

[Mark Elliott]

sure, recruit away! love the read - even useful :-)

--
-----
Mark Elliott PhD
collaboration ~ mass collaboration ~ stigmergy
http://mark-elliott.net/ ~ http://collabforge.com ~ http://metacollab.net/

[Howard Rheingold]

Neil Postman takes on a similar issue in the classroom in his
wonderful book, "Teaching As A Subversive Activity." Pedagogically,
the problem with the Socratic method is that the Socratic teacher uses
questions to lead the student. Postman's POV, which I agree with, is
to let the questions -- and the students who ask them -- lead the
learning. Classrooms are training grounds for semantic stopsigns.

Howard Rheingold how...@rheingold.com http://twitter.com/hrheingold
http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com
http://vlog.rheingold.com
what it is ---> is --->up to us

[Mills Davis]

Howard,

Letting learning be guided by the learners questions, in a way, is
always the foundation for learning. But, the key thing about questions
is that they direct thought processes to occur. To answer a question
calls for marshaling the knowledge -- theory and information --
needed, and being able to express the "answer". One formula for
interesting writing is to ask and answer interesting questions. Asking
good questions, however, is also a performing art. Like playing a good
game of chess, students don't always know what to ask, or how to ask
it, or what patterns of questions will yield valuable learning or be
efficient. So, I would argue for an educational approach that focuses
on the art of questioning.

[Mark Elliott]

So, I would argue for an educational approach that focuses
on the art of questioning.

That would be interesting indeed - i wonder what the syllabus would look like (surely there must be material on this, that is, 'how to ask good questions'? - though an initial googling found little).

[Robert Link]

On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 05:15:24PM +1000, Mark Elliott wrote:
> That would be interesting indeed - i wonder what the syllabus would look
> like (surely there must be material on this, that is, 'how to ask good
> questions'? - though an initial googling found little).

IRC and certain email lists have some guidelines about this. But note,
the context tends to be very focused and there is usually a topical faq
which questioners should have already consulted. I think what we're
talking about here is something a little more open ended.

Uh, for me, the best introduction to such matters is Bateson's "Every
Schoolboy Knows", from his book, "Mind and Nature", not because it
focuses so much on how to ask questions, but because of its focus on how
to avoid common errors of thought. After that I'd probably push for
mastery of Schopenhauer's "The Art of Controversy" (see
http://oblios-cap.com/blosxom.cgi/438.writeback for an example) again as
a kind of mental prophylactic against sloppy thinking and argumentation.
With those measures in place, I think folks'd be well prepared to
formulate good questions (and to critique their questions).

$.02