From: Martin Weissenboeck[SMTP:mweissen@ccc.at] Sent: Freitag, 21. März 1997 23:02 To: pcnews-Redaktion Subject: AGTK 97077: Philosophisches AGT97077: Philosophisches. 24.03.97 Erich Neuwirth hat vom Listserver logo-l folgendes gefunden: --------------- wrote: I assume that more than a few of the subscribers to this discussion list are constructivism "freaks" so they will be interested in this letter that was published in today's Wall Street Journal. I typed it into WORD from a photocopy I made at the library. I am not taking a position on this subject. I am just the messenger, so please don't shoot the messenger. But I am interested what you think about these ideas. Dale EDUCATION PHILOSOPHY BALDERDASH Wall Street Journal Letters to the Editor March 17, 1997 Paul R. Gross, Falmouth, Mass. The defense of constructivism in the philosophy and practice of teaching offered by Carol A. Keck(Letter to the Editor, March 4) is an unwitting example of what has gone wrong with public education, at least in science and mathematics, over the past 25 years. In a characteristic mixture of high dudgeon and higher certitude, Ms. Keck glosses fashionable educational theory as though it wee demonstrated truth. In fact, it is a farrago of incoherent and counterfactual statements that schoolteachers are trained to accept as principles. "Learning isn't necessarily an outcome of teaching," Ms. Keck asserts, which is a good enough start. We can all agree. But what follows is the non-sequitur that "teachers and school boards should establish goals that place emphasis on quality of understanding rather than the delivery of information." This is meaningless on several grounds, including (1) the absence of a definition for "quality of understanding," about which serious philosophers have argued since at least David Hume, (2) the implication that understanding is separable from information, and (3) that learning can be, and often is, an obvious result of teaching. "Learning usually proceeds from concrete experiences to the abstract" is Ms. Keck's excuse for "children's interactions with blocks and other manipulatives (sic) that can make a classroom noisy, but can make it an effective learning environment nevertheless." Three facts are implied to exist: none does. It is not fact that "learning usually proceeds from concrete experiences…" Some kinds of learning do; others don't. The pain of sitting on a hot stove does usually suffice to teach the foolishness of that position. Independently of the reflex that abandons it. But few are the schoolchildren who discover Archimedes' Principle (hence repeat the intellectual development of the great scientist of antiquity) by playing with rubber ducks in the bathtub. All children play: few come independently to a definition of buoyancy. And, it has yet to be shown that humans learn anything better in noise than in quiet. Ms. Keck's other arguments, such as the desirability of "feedback from teachers" and high expectations thereof, are banalities. And finally, the assertion that constructivism in classrooms is not widespread depends upon a definition of constructivism, about which the weightiest constructivist philosophers and sociologists disagree, and upon data, which are not supplied. It is a fact that constructivism in its manifold versions, especially social-constructivism, is fashionable and important in education. Pushed to its extremes, as it often is in psychotherapy, sociology and the history of science. In the humanities generally, and in classroom teaching, it results in the absurdity of expecting children to learn physics by playing games. Children cannot relive without study the conceptual history of any field of knowledge. The abstract elements of that history must be taught by instructors who understand said elements: only in that context do experimentation and play contribute to learning, that is, to the acquisition of knowledge. In 40 years of teaching biology, at all levels, I have never encountered a committee of students who came up independently with Mendel's Laws or a proof of the circulation of the blood. --------------------------------------------------------------- Please post messages to the Logo forum to logo-l@gsn.org. Mail questions about the list administration to logofdn@gsn.org. To unsubscribe send unsubscribe logo-l to majordomo@gsn.org. ---------------End of Original Message----------------- ---- MfG Martin Weissenboeck Gatterburggasse 7, A-1190 Wien Tel: +43-1-369 88 58-0, Fax: +43-1-369 88 59-7