Chess lessons: "Smart" vs. "Stupid"
m...@ms.lt
company in Chicago. There are actually several such companies and
hundreds of instructors. For $50, plus or minus, I teach 10 to 15
students for one-hour. I instruct the group for half-an-hour and then they
play for half-an-hour. (They are actually hiring. If you know somebody
interested, I can refer them.)
I share a distinction between "smart" and "stupid" education which I came
to as I developed my "lessons".
Chess is a game that you typically don't learn how to play in one or two
sittings. There are many rules to learn, and subsequently, many tactics
and strategies.
The real challenge for me was to manage a class of students. How do you
keep the attention of a group of children ranging from 1st grade to 5th
grade, or 3rd grade to 7th grade, some of whom may not know the rules at
all, and others of whom have played for years?
An additional challenge is wanting to share of myself. In the US, I was a
top 10 player under 16. I love to think deeply. I want to share the deep
ideas I know.
The chess company I work for has developed a ordering of topics to teach
step-by-step. It's sensible, logical and proven. However, it's not very
interesting the second time around. It kind of makes me irrelevant, and
especially, the students who already know the material.
We can teach those essentials as we like, so I came up with an alternative
pedagogy which, at the least, keeps me sane and lets me shine. I organize
each lesson around a very deep idea which I develop in every way I can.
For example, in teaching beginners we're supposed to dedicate our first
class to explaining how to move the Pawns. It takes some practice because
Pawns move forward (one square or possibly two) but capture diagonally.
And you can play an interesting game, "Pawn Wars", with just Kings and
Pawns. Of course, this is not at all interesting for non-beginners.
Instead, I teach a lesson on a very deep idea: "The Pawn is the soul of
chess" (Philidor). I start by asking, What piece is the soul of chess?
One child may say the Queen, and I'll say, Yes, that's the most powerful
piece, but No. Another child will say the King, and I'll say, Yes, that's
the object of the game, but No. When they say the Pawn, then I explain
why:
* The Pawn is the least valuable of the pieces, but if it gets to the end
of the board it can be promoted to the Queen, the most valuable of the
pieces. Thus a one Pawn advantage can be enough to win the game.
* The way that the Pawns move means that the game can become "closed" (all
jammed up, favoring the Knights that can jump in and out of "holes"), but
at some point, advancing and exchanging Pawns, the game becomes "open",
opening up diagonals for Bishops and files for Rooks.
* There are eight Pawns that can work together, defend each other or not,
retain or lose their flexibility. They are the least valuable of the
pieces but for that reason the easiest to protect and stay their ground.
Thus "Pawn structure" determines the personality of the game. I can talk
about passed pawns, doubled pawns, isolated pawns, backward pawns. I can
explain how 3 pawns advance on 2 pawns.
We can talk for days about pawns. In doing so, not only can we mention
the rules of how they move, but we can provide countless illustrations and
supporting ideas. Most of my students, and I myself, won't understand all
of this. I teach a bit over their head so they are not bored. But each
of us will understand enough so that we stay engrossed. We can return to
this topic over and over again.
Afterwards, when the students play, it becomes apparent that such deep
ideas are completely beyond their level. And yet, over several weeks,
their game matures noticeably. They learn the basic rules through
immersion in play. I don't have to teach them very much to the group.
Whereas the deep ideas, like seeds planted in their brains, crop up in
their play over time. With my lessons, I expose them to thinking about
the board as a whole, and the game as a whole.
I feel that this kind of teaching is "smart" in that I am speaking to
several audiences at once. Sesame Street is "smart" and so is
Shakespeare. Prairie school houses, where one teacher taught several
grades at once, could be smart. A preacher's sermon can be smart, and so
can a politician's speech. A parent caring for a family, and especially,
children of different ages, has to be smart.
I'll contrast "smart" with "stupid". The distinction is I think
fundamental to what's right or wrong in our educational system. Maybe
"stupid" is better, but maybe not always.
By "stupid" I mean teaching to a single audience. It's teaching
step-by-step, one idea at a time, keeping to a logical, linear
progression. It's isolating an idea. Spoonfeeding it. If you like,
standardizing it.
The advantage of "stupid" teaching is that it can be extremely clear. You
can learn how pieces move, learn many cut-and-dry techniques, say, for
mating with a king and two rooks.
One disadvantage of "stupid" teaching is that it may never cover
whatever's not formalized. Students may learn about different situations
in chess, but never get exposed to a real game between advanced players.
They may have no clue about the flow of the game from opening to middle
game to endgame. They never learn what's actually central.
In college, I stupidly took two quarters of music theory. I thought it
would expand my mind. Maybe one quarter did. But certainly I would have
been much better off learning an instrument. I was basically deaf to what
I was learning.
I think a more profound consequence of "stupid" teaching is that it leads
to "stupid" teachers teaching students to be "stupid". You can learn so
much stupidly, step-by-step. You can learn quantum physics. But you'll
still be "stupid".
I have a Ph.D. in Math. Basically, all that I learned was "stupid". It
was all step-by-step. It was all organized by subject, one building on
another. I met with very little insight or intuition.
Most personal, customized learning, even home-school learning is likewise
"stupid". We're learning a technique, a concept, a fact, but not a deep
idea and its endless possibilities. We frankly don't even have a list of
deep ideas in Math or any other subject.
We're "stupid" in that we focus on what we are learning as if it was
detached. We're acting as if there's only one relevant point of view.
We're in a stupor, blind to everything else, to everybody else.
It's amazing how much we achieve being "stupid". It may be the basis for
our civilization. Maybe it's best that way.
I learned from teaching chess that what makes teaching "smart" is the
challenge of relating with different audiences at the same time. We focus
on a deep idea that can speak to people at very different levels. We keep
going back with fresh eyes to how it looks like to a newcomer. We see the
roots of the idea, the unfolding of its consequences, the growth in our
understanding, its trajectory and potential. We see the relevance and the
wealth of opportunity for variation, improvisation, for play.
Ultimately, I think we learn to learn, create and interact on a much more
profound level. My calling is to learn forever, grow forever, live
forever, and surely in a way that's "smart", not "stupid". What is the
point of learning so many "stupid" things? Isn't it to be "smart"? But
can it, does it make us so? And yet, in this world, why be "smart"?
except as its own reward. For you can only reward somebody for being
"stupid", for executing a task from A to B, an outcome that can be
observed and measured so that it can be controlled.
Surely, in what I call "stupid", there are many people dedicated to making
it a better, clearer, easier, less frustrating "stupid".
Is "smart" better than "stupid"? I don't know. I choose "smart".
Did my students benefit? I don't know. I don't seem to have had more
returning students. Perhaps fewer than other instructors. There are
great, friendly, intelligent, successful instructors who teach mostly
"stupid". I do know that my students were able to pay attention for an
impressively long time, up to thirty minutes. I did not need to rely much
on points, enticements or awards, unrelated to chess. I know that their
play matured dramatically as related by their parents, who they often
beat. I know that they appreciated that my teaching was something
special. I also know that they experienced that they don't have to
understand absolutely everything.
"Smart" thinking people know they can benefit without understanding
everything. "Stupid" thinking people insist that they must understand
everything or they blame you for "confusing" them. They are truly
"stupid".
I tried to think of alternative words, but "smart" and "stupid" were the
most clear.
I share below examples of "smart" chess lessons.
I appreciate feedback, and especially, ideas for "smart" lessons in Math
and other subjects. For example, I'm tutoring an adult student in Basic
Math, and we're practicing over and over again three key ideas:
* Counting using "counting dials" (For example, counting by 3's using a
dial ordered with the pattern 0, 3, 6, 9, 2, 5, 8, 1, 4 and combined with
a dial for the tens ordered by 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). This lets
her get a sense of how counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication,
division all fit together, and helps her build intuition towards
ultimately memorizing her math facts.
* Learning long division using "carrot money" in denominations of 1s, 10s,
100s, dividing that up among 2 or 3 "pirates", keeping track of the
pirates' money and the banks' money. Long division makes good use of all
arithmetic.
* Doing word problems involving proportions, such as converting
dollars/hour to K-dollars/year; walking 3-miles/hour; converting 100
meters/10 seconds to miles/hour; calculating price/ounce; converting 12
pages/ minute on a printer to doing thousands, millions, billions of
pages, etc.
If she can master those three things, then I think she's mastered Math,
the better half of what it's good for. I suppose it would be more "smart"
if we had a group of learners and made these ideas relevant to everybody.
She wants me to teach her English, writing, computers and other subjects.
I want to help her find a meaningful project where she could practice this
all, but I don't yet imagine it. I appreciate ideas!
Andrius
Andrius Kulikauskas
m...@ms.lt
(773) 306-3807
http://www.selflearners.net
---------------------------------------------------------
"Smart" chess lessons
---------------------------------------------------------
"The Pawn is the soul of chess" (see above)
"It takes three pieces for a good attack" This is a way to review how
the knight, bishop and rook move. We cover attacks by one, two and three
pieces, including tactics such as forks, pins, skewers, double checks,
discovered checks.
The flow of a game: Opening, middle game, endgame. I take them through a
sample game which I invent on the spot, starting with the goals of the
opening (developing pieces, claiming the center, castling on the same or
opposite sides), the middle game (the logic in trading pieces when you're
ahead), the endgame (pawn promotion, basic mates with queen or two rooks).
Thinking backwards: We consider the flow of a game, working backwards. We
start with the rules of checkmate, the ways of getting out of check. We
consider classic mates. We learn how to check mate with King and Queen
against King, or King and two Rooks against King. We learn to promote
Pawns, to develop a passed Pawn, etc. and so on working backwards.
Classic checkmates. We review how the Queen and King move and the rules
for checkmate. We consider all kinds of typical mates that arise in the
middle game such as mates by Queen with supporting Bishop or Knight or
Rook and back rank mates with a Rook. We cover the "four move checkmate"
and ways to defend against it.
What is each piece's "dream in life"? The pawn wants to get to the end of
the board and be promoted; or work as part of a team... Then knight likes
closed games, holes and forks. Bishops like to work together. Rooks like
to castle, support pawn breakthroughs, double up on open files, get behind
on the 7th or 8th ranks. The Queen likes to come out later and attack many
pieces at once, swing across the board. The King likes to get safe by
castling, then come out and be active when it's mostly just Pawns left.
Notating a game using algebraic notation. (I think this is a key skill in
terms of reviewing one's games.)
Reviewing one's game...
Attacking and defending a piece. We consider what happens as we involve
increasingly more pieces to attack and defend, say, a Pawn. We consider
the logic of various move orders. This is a good time to discuss the
values of the pieces.
-------------------------
The above lessons all worked well. Here are some lessons that might but I
haven't tried them out yet.
"Mental checklist" This would be an ordered list of what to watch out for
everytime you make your move. How is or can your opponent check or
checkmate your king? Take or win your Queen? And other pieces? In one move
or several moves, using a variety of tactics? What is their plan? Looking
from their side of the board! And conversely, how can you checkmate or
check their king? attack or win their queen? and so on. And what is your
plan?
"Making plans" The variety of plans that you can make, including attacking
the King, defending, counterattacking; developing pieces; controlling the
center; weakening pawn structure; exchanging worse pieces for better
pieces; winning weak pawns; opening and controlling files and diagonals;
placing pieces in strong positions; passing pawns; getting behind your
opponents pawns; etc.
Trades and Sacrifices...
Studying a classic game by world champions, etc.
How to play and win with various handicaps (strategies for winning even
when you play without a Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight or some combination),
but also how and why to trade down when you have a material advantage.
kirby urner
<< snip >>
> We can talk for days about pawns. In doing so, not only can we mention
> the rules of how they move, but we can provide countless illustrations and
> supporting ideas. Most of my students, and I myself, won't understand all
> of this. I teach a bit over their head so they are not bored. But each
> of us will understand enough so that we stay engrossed. We can return to
> this topic over and over again.
>
Great essay, enjoyed it a lot.
I used to study chess books on my own, walk through the games,
learn the terminology, member of the chess club etc. Enough
exposure to the culture to develop appreciation and respect,
while never practicing enough to really get good.
When it was Bobby Fischer versus Boris Spassky playoff time,
I was in the Middle East, blissfully following every move, which
extended well off the board in the case, a full blow Cold War
extravaganza.
He went on to be an extremist, though not a terrorist in my
judgment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer
In my workshop at Chicago / O'Hare (Hyatt Regency) in 2009,
in the International Room, I stressed the importance of "lore"
versus "purely technical skills".
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2009/03/urner-workshop.html
Creating a mapping between our respective heuristics, I'd say
my "technical" axis maps to "stupid" while more "lore" axis, maps
to "smart".
I draw one of these "opportunity cost" curves, a convex section
of circle (an arc) representing fixed bandwidth, and suggest
a powerful teacher or teaching knows how to move the pointer
in response to feedback, which may well be a live audience
(it was in my case, in Chicago).
In praise of "stupid", I was just at the drivers' education class
for parents of teenagers and was impressed by all the
techniques that go into "stupid" presentations. Simple,
straightforward chess that's just 1-2-3 easy, or made to
look easy, is how it sometimes goes down, smoothly and
sweetly.
Such trainings happen in military settings quite a bit, where
you finally meet those teachers who want to know, need you
to know, and have something finite and doable to share
(like driving).
However, the technical easily becomes trivial, the obvious,
the boring. It loses "sex appeal" quickly and only gluttons
for punishment seem to have no upper limit on what they'll
take in (a special kind of geek, that one).
One wants that sense of mystery, depth, or even just
applications. One wants not just the techniques and
armaments of war, or of a sport, one wants the lore,
the war stories. The boys especially go off and playact
in their stereotypical games, while the girls do their thing
with another set of action figures.
http://youtu.be/-CU040Hqbas (anti-sexist rant)
Of course my war references are a turn-off for some
(too "blue aisle" maybe) but then chess is itself a "war
game" one might say. As a card carrying Jungian
(business cards collectively unconscious) I don't see
suppressing a way of talking or thinking as a viable
way to control outward violence.
On the contrary, my invisible bumper sticker reads
"Quakers Play Quake" (a spin-off of 'Doom', you might
know it). I'm not one of those who goes around decrying
violent video games.
Rather, I think wars should be fought *only* as video
games (a big step up in maturity, vs. slaughtering the
meat avatars in monkey-brain scenarios).
In sum, given bandwidth X, I think swerving toward
"smart" and "storytelling" also works to re-mystify and
restore depth.
Come to think of it, the driving school training I attended
last night had lots of veering into lore as well, and so
demonstrated oscillation more I've been accrediting.
Glad you mentioned 'Sesame Street' as this show
indeed pitches to adults as well as younger persons.
An elementary mistake sometimes made with cartoons
(not that Sesame Street is all cartoons) is to think they're
only "for children".
Speaking of which, let me end with a semi non-sequitur,
a plug for the movie 'Mary and Max' if you want some
great ethnography.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978762/ (the trailer gives the flavor).
If only more math were taught this way.
Kirby
kirby urner
> (not that Sesame Street is all cartoons) is to think they're
> only "for children".
>
> Speaking of which, let me end with a semi non-sequitur,
> a plug for the movie 'Mary and Max' if you want some
> great ethnography.
>
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978762/ (the trailer gives the flavor).
>
> If only more math were taught this way.
>
> Kirby
More links to ToonTown:
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7650139&tstart=0
Not that math is devoid of anime. I still admire the Donald Duck
series, viewable on Youtube.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/6738326909/in/photostream
I like the spin that anything involving Phi and so-called sacred
geometry is too radical / satanic for the superstitious of today.
We ridicule the 99% and their super-sanitized corporate curriculum
for the deliberate exclusion of esoterica, a way to keep their people
dumbed down and in substandard housing (better shelter solutions
are in the works at GrunchNet). Children of Illuminati all learn about
the NCLB Polynomial and Polyhedron.
Kirby
Juan
Your whole article is very interesting. I especially love this
paragraph:
"It's amazing how much we achieve being "stupid". It may be the basis
for our civilization. Maybe it's best that way."
a very useful, productive tool, when you pick it up and use it as a
tool, being aware that it is "stupid," and it is a tool. You can get a
whole lot done with such a technique. I guess such a productivity is
one reason why it is so widely used. The problem is when people use
this "stupid" thinking not as a tool but as a way to limit themselves,
to imprison themselves (and/or others) within the exclusive confines
of known rules and accepted, familiar principles.
Let me give you an example from math homework. When I tutor students,
I observe over and over (not always by any means but very often)
people wanting to solve the whole problem inside their head, and
wanting to produce only the final answer, considering themselves smart
if they can do it, or stupid when they cannot, as if their solution
was to become "less worthy" if they write down intermediate steps. Not
surprisingly, the vast majority of students who exhibit this trait,
they get stuck after performing two or three operations in their head,
and then they get all confused, and they end up saying: "I don't get
it, it's too complicated."
I tell them: "You are using your brain both as a calculator, and as a
piece of paper. Do you see that?" Then I ask them: "Do you have paper
and pencil?" (even when obviously they do have them sitting in front
of them); and "Do you know how to write?"
I tell them things like: "I heard you saying 'If x is the number of
apples..' yet you did not write that down, did you? Why not? Can you
please write x = # apples?" Many of them think it's silly to write
down such obvious things (Obviously they are "obvious" for them
because they just thought of them, or because they are facts they
already know but I digress). Some of them reluctantly start writing
these intermediate steps, and then they go "Yes but, wait, then.." and
they go back to being stuck in confusion for thinking too far ahead of
themselves without writing anything.
I tell them: "Why use half-your brain as a piece of paper when you
have actual paper sitting in front of you? You are wasting your mental
energy just trying to remember the two or three previous steps while
at the same time you are thinking of the next step."
So, in a way you could say I teach them to think "stupid," by making
them write step-by-step solutions. I don't do this to make them "show
their work," and I don't teach this to every student, only to those I
believe they need it, because otherwise they get stuck in every
problem that involves more than five steps. I teach them to use this
form of "stupid" thinking (writing down each step) to free their
thinking process from fact-overload, and stay able to use their mind
for the next step without worrying about the previous part of the
process.
So far I have described one way in which I use "stupid" thinking as a
tool, being aware it is a tool, and it results in an advantage for
some students.
Some other times, I have students who tell me: "I kind of know how to
do this problem but my teacher wants us to write the solution in this
other way, and I don't get it. It does not make any sense to me." I
tell them: "O.K. let's do this problem, how do you solve it?" For
example, they could say: "Well, I just divide this number in half, and
then add this other number, and when you check it, it works but my
teacher wants us to always start by writing some 'function rule' or
something, I don't get it." Then I tell them: "Can you please write
down the steps of your solution?" and sometimes they say "But that is
not what my teacher wants to see." Then I say: "I know but, is your
teacher here right now?" When they say: "No!" And I say: "So? If you
want, I can show you how to make the translation from your solution
into your teacher's solution. That's why I want you to write down your
solution first, because that is what makes sense to you, right? That
is how you understand it, and that's how you look at the problem,
right?"
In this cases, they have initially experienced the homework process as
an instance of themselves trying to make themselves think
"stupid" (trying to mechanically follow the teacher's alien,
obnoxious, artificial, confusing way -at least in their perspective)
instead of thinking "smart" by just finding the solution to the
problem in their own way, a way they consider a whole lot more
natural. Here I am talking about the cases where, for the most part,
the student's solving process arrives to the correct answer, and that
the difference with "the teacher's way" is mainly one of formatting,
or presenting a particular path towards the solution that the teacher
may feel illustrates a central concept, or a general idea; and when
the teacher is being rigid about that format because they think it is
important. Whether a particular teacher's opinion about the relative
importance of the concepts may coincide with, or differ from my own, I
don't care. I focus on discovering the subjective learning experience
the individual student I'm working with at the time is having. I focus
on discovering what is obvious / confusing / clear / mysterious /
easy / hard / natural / artificial for him or her, in relation to the
problem at hand. So I ask them to move away from thinking "stupid" and
back to thinking "smart" because then I offer them the translation,
and most of the time they are really happy when finally they discover
that indeed, the teacher's way in a way makes some sense, and that
alien format is not totally disconnected from their own ideas.
Juan
In reference to this part of your message:
On Jan 21, 12:02 am, m...@ms.lt wrote:
> I've been making a living teaching chess part-time after school for a
> company in Chicago. There are actually several such companies and
> hundreds of instructors. For $50, plus or minus, I teach 10 to 15
> students for one-hour. I instruct the group for half-an-hour and then they
> play for half-an-hour. (They are actually hiring. If you know somebody
> interested, I can refer them.)
Chess does one have to know in order to become a Chess trainer? I
liked playing Chess in middle school. I still remember the rules, and
some basic strategy but I would almost call myself a beginner because
I have not played in ages. Lately, I tend to only play Go. It would be
pretty cool to be able to make some money teaching Go, although again,
my level may not be high enough to charge for teaching what I know,
plus I believe Go is far less popular here in the West than in the
East.
Anyway, I would appreciate some information about your company, and/or
their hiring requirements because I am always looking for ideas on how
to get more work during the Summer, when schools go on vacation and
math tutoring temporarily dries out.
Juan Castaneda
m...@ms.lt
Thank you for your great letter! And thank you, Kirby!
I reply briefly to this one.
The company I work for is http://www.chessscholars.com
There are several others here, including Chess Wizards
http://www.chesswizards.com
I'm not sure there's much work in the summer, as with Math.
I'm working for Brainfuse http://www.brainfuse.com as an online tutor.
They pay $10 to $12 per hour.
In California, I recommend you contacting Joe Hanley regarding chess
http://www.hanleychessacademy.com
We were on the same high school team together. He's a great player,
teacher and person.
Andrius
Andrius Kulikauskas, m...@ms.lt, http://www.selflearners.net
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Maria Droujkova
I share a distinction between "smart" and "stupid" education which I came
to as I developed my "lessons".
The chess company I work for has developed a ordering of topics to teach
step-by-step. It's sensible, logical and proven. However, it's not very
interesting the second time around. It kind of makes me irrelevant, and
especially, the students who already know the material.
Algot Runeman
> In praise of "stupid", I was just at the drivers' education class
> for parents of teenagers and was impressed by all the
> techniques that go into "stupid" presentations. Simple,
> straightforward chess that's just 1-2-3 easy, or made to
> look easy, is how it sometimes goes down, smoothly and
> sweetly.
>
> Such trainings happen in military settings quite a bit, where
> you finally meet those teachers who want to know, need you
> to know, and have something finite and doable to share
> (like driving).
>
> However, the technical easily becomes trivial, the obvious,
> the boring. It loses "sex appeal" quickly and only gluttons
> for punishment seem to have no upper limit on what they'll
> take in (a special kind of geek, that one).
development move activities from the exciting failure-rich experience of
exploration and wonder into mundane, habit development.
For things like walking, riding a bicycle, especially driving a car,
development of effective habits is a "best path." Maybe habit
development is the core purpose of rote learning. I definitely do not
want to think about how to lift my foot off the accelerator to put it
over the brake pedal in anticipation of the change of the traffic light
from green to red. That physical sequence should be habitual, almost
unconscious. I want, instead, to be able to concentrate on and process
the actions of the drivers around me to see if they are going to make a
quick lane change in front of me to zoom through the yellow, etc.
"Stupid" driver's education is good by encouraging effective driving
habits in a safe, supportive way (perhaps also avoiding the anxiety of a
parent beside her young son thinking, "Oh, my God, we're going to die!")
Vast amounts of our skill development depend on the ability to develop
habits. Don't ask me to give up my "stupid" habits. They are vital to me.
Bill Belichick is well known for his mantra "Do your job" and for using
repetitive "situational football" practice to get his players to have
automatic reactions to each situation -- as it develops on the field in
a game. His method is an extension of the common saying, "Practice makes
perfect."
The more we convert from childlike exploration to adult habit, the more
comfortable we can become. But there is a problem. When a comfortable
adult (or young adult, still in the student sequence) moves out of the
comfort zone, habits cannot handle the job. At all ages, humans need the
ability to try something new, adapt old habits to deal with new
challenges, accept the sudden, uncomfortable re-emergence of "failure"
as the new skill develops. "Failure" is a natural consequence of
exploration and must be seen as a good thing for the learning process.
My experience with adult learners (of computer skills, in my case)
suggests that many are resistant or even unwilling to re-enter a
childlike failure-driven pattern. For example, they want to achieve
instant conversion of sequential menu choices into habits. Since it
doesn't happen that way, they were often very frustrated. Some said
things like, "If only I were a kid. Kids understand this stuff. They
just get it." That isn't true, of course. Kids don't expect to have
habits. Failing comes right along with every task for a child because
almost every challenge is "new" and hasn't been converted to habit. Kids
may even be unaware that they have habits.
To some degree, the learning system may be responsible, too. Adults put
expectations on children. At first almost none, feeding them, wiping
their bottoms. Gradually, adults encourage and demand that children take
increased personal "responsibility." Cleaning up the pieces after a mad
session of play with ones toys does not usually occur to a kid. There's
a preference for moving on. "OK, what's next?" Effective parenting
builds clean-up into more and more levels of a child's effort. The
expectation is sensible, building a child's habits to be responsible.
In school, though, a system of grades has developed. It is a shorthand
notation to report home how children are meeting goals. Teachers who
watch the daily advance of skills probably don't need a rank book to
recognize what a child can do or still needs to practice. Even the next
teacher in the child's curriculum sequence can quickly see what a child
can do without struggle. Grades are a minor convenience between
teachers. Expectations logically ramp upward through a child's years of
school. The meaning of a C escalates along with the advance of
expectations. It seems sensible that average performance for an
eleven-year-old should be further along than for a eight-year-old. It is
instructive to watch younger siblings trying to emulate their older
sister. Children are naturally eager to advance.
There is, I think, a very serious other side to "grading." Maybe it is
subtle and we have not realized its impact. Maybe we do understand, and
just do grading anyway. Parents, teachers, indeed, anyone who judges
children's performance are eager to see improvement. Moving up from
C-level performance to B-level is good. A child staying "average" is
difficult for a kid-focused adult to accept. We urge children to get
better. Isn't it the same as it was when asking a child to clean up
after a game?
But then there's the next level of grading's impact. Failure takes on a
new significance. The mark of D says you are below average. The mark of
F says you are seriously behind (the curve?). Observing that a child can
answer just under 60 percent of today's quiz questions confers no adult
smiles. Nope, that kid "failed." It does not matter that baseball fans
would do just about anything to get a varsity athlete who could play
with a 600 batting average. In fact, the principal would strut proudly
around the baseball diamond if the team had nine players with a mere 300
batting average. Why, professional players are paid huge salaries with
that pathetic rate of 30% success.
Schools in the US who graduate 95 percent of their seniors are now being
judged as failures with the No Child Left Behind scheme. Anything less
than 100 percent is unacceptable. We have become grade obsessed.
"Smart" education might be possible by keeping children immature,
child-like, throughout the education sequence, encouraging deep thought,
experimentation, success after much failure, much trial-and-error.
Do we not owe it to them?
Must we gradually squeeze that exploratory spirit out of children by
asking them to get ever more serious about their work, gauging less than
average performance with an "unacceptable" F. Today's teenagers are
biologically no different from their counterparts in the past. They
still have their hormones raging through them at around the same ages as
before. They are natural risk takers. Yet, we are asking them to be more
serious, more like habit-bound, efficient, mistake-free adults every
year they move ahead in school.
But wait! Isn't the world a harsh place?
Didn't those children from past eras need to be ready for an unforgiving
world?
Didn't they need to be able to run fast, aim straight, pull back the bow
with a strong arm, etc., etc.?
Didn't children need to be ready to step up as warriors?
Yes, and they died more easily, too. If they could not run fast enough
in front of a hungry lion, the consequences could be a quick death. The
other, faster humans, of any age, got away. Quick reactions and "stupid"
habits paid big benefits. "Grading" was harsh at the bottom of the skill
curve.
Math skill (much less a love of it), along with the skills of all the
rest of school subjects are probably not deserving of such harsh
judgment. Students would rise up in protest. "It's not fair!" if Mr.
Mathguru let Johnny get eaten by the school's lion mascot just because
he couldn't do his factoring effectively. Getting a child to love any
subject of the intellect, involves engaging her/his child-like
exploratory, risk-taking behavior. While we do NOT want adolescents to
take drugs, drive cars fast, or worse, we need to seek a balance between
encouraging life-preserving or life-enhancing habit development and
intellectual risk/failure behavior. We need to separate the process of
creating mature learners into at least those two aspects.
Schools, as part of our culture, need to see the difference between
grading (verifying) healthy habit acquisition and being intellectually
engaged. A "smart" risk-tolerant system will see play for what it is.
Play is the engagement with stimulating ideas, that which is just beyond
our grasp. Play engages "that sense of mystery, depth."
Andrius started off this thread with a discussion of chess. It is a good
place to start. Most of us think of chess as a game. Most of us start
"playing" chess for fun. Many continue to have fun while they develop skill.
I need to ask, is there a point at which a person stops seeing chess as
fun, stops seeing it as a game? Master, grand master, never?
Is the intellectual challenge still an enjoyable game, even at the most
advanced level of "play"?
Can we be smart about learning, whether it be chess, math or any other
intellectual challenge?
Can we institutionalize a love of learning?
Would eliminating the steady bombardment of grades and academic failure
help?
--Algot
--
-------------------------
Algot Runeman
algot....@verizon.net
Web Site: http://www.runeman.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/algotruneman/
sip:algot....@ekiga.net
Open Source Blog: http://mosssig.wordpress.com
MOSS SIG Mailing List: http://groups.google.com/group/mosssig2
Juan
Juan
On Jan 22, 12:59 am, m...@ms.lt wrote:
> Juan,
> Thank you for your great letter! And thank you, Kirby!
> I reply briefly to this one.
> There are several others here, including Chess Wizardshttp://www.chesswizards.com
> teacher and person.
>
> Andrius
>
kirby urner
> Can we institutionalize a love of learning?
>
> Would eliminating the steady bombardment of grades and academic failure
> help?
>
> --Algot
Many interesting ideas in that one.
Returning to the playful sense where failing is more OK requires
what you might call a safety net.
True story: a guy watches cop shows on TV, imagines being
a cop, becomes one, but the job doesn't match the TV version
hardly at all and the job is not fun. But now there's health
and car insurance, two kids, a girlfriend, an ex... lots of
obligations and not much time to jump in as some newbie or
wannabe. They say we live longer so might start new careers
late in life. Well yeah, but where's the safety net?
I talk about this more with respect to cops in my on-line
journal:
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2005/11/post-thanksgiving.html
To your related subject, of how might we make it OK to fail
again, I think once there's a basic sense of safety, there's a
willingness to experience humility and yes, even humiliation
but within those bounds of safety. We can afford to laugh
at ourselves in some circumstances, and this laugh of self
recognition is an immediate reprieve in many cases, and
creates a space rife with possibility. When we're feeling
"light" about our own identities, to the point where we
chuckle at our shortcomings, our incompetence, is when
we're accelerating really quickly along a learning path, likely
really getting somewhere.
I would want to bolster this thesis, if challenged, by pointing
to exemplary cartoons (some yet to be developed) of an
andragogical nature (pedagogy a subcategory). One way
we make it OK to laugh at our foibles is to concentrate
them in a fictional character and then laugh as this comical
protagonist, our avatar, manages to muddle through, or
doesn't, in which case it's more tragic. Yet as audience
members, spectators, we feel safe.
The safety of watching to happen "to others" has been a
staple of our diet since the Greek theater. Citizens learn \
by empathizing with the actors on stage. Indonesian
shadow puppets. TV put a new frame around it.
I also believe it's hard to get the mix just right and
obnoxious aberrations of the ideal learning environment
are not as uncommon as they should be.
A key concept we should come back to is "teasing". It's
stereotypical of "bad teachers" to "heap scorn" on their
hapless pupils, exposing them to damaging humiliating
vibes in their tender years.
On the other hand, chiding, goading, in some ways shocking
a student at just the right moments, perhaps with a joke,
are ways associated with wily instructors, the best trainers
and coaches, zen roshis and such. These mythological
teachers have an edginess about them that works wonders
such that when the training is over and we're back in our
everyday lives, we feel we really learned something from
the experience. We're grateful for those coyote-like clowns,
tricky yet talented -- meaning we continued to feel safe at
some basic level (back to my analysis of "when it works
to experience failure").
Even the best teachers get moody sometimes and an expert
instructive teaser might sometimes be too grumpy and harsh.
But these are remarks about humans in general as we're all
called upon to exercise our teaching capacities in some way
shape or form.
What's best of all is when students become self aware enough
to know clearly what styles of training work best for them, and
plus when they have choices. Even when it comes to "stupid",
people have their preferences. Again, I go back to the importance
of a safety net. Just make it possible to try before you buy, to
sample, and you will have helped a lot towards recruiting those
people most suited to specific style and grading / ranking system.
Kirby