On Mon, 7 Jul 2008 17:26:18 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

Sigh. Apparently this teacher has never built anything. One does not
build a kit to learn something. One builds it to have something that
works. The learning is incidental.

One of the ways one learns is by repeating other people's work. True
creativity grows out of mastering the fundamentals.

Of course. That's makes good sense for an academic or scientifically
inclined High Skool student. However, we're talking about a 4th grade
class of 9-10 year olds. As I previously ranted, everything they do
is a new and educational experience. The trick is to get them to do
things. Education is incidental to experience. If they happen to
learn a few things along the way, all the better.

When you haven't done many simple things, literally everything is
considered creative to a 9-10 year old. Eventually, they do settle
down and learn that it's not necessary to shove one's finger in the
fire to know that it's hot. That can be learned from a book, video,
or lecture.

You might be amused with the acceptable vocabulary for a 10 year old.
As I recall from teacher prep the acceptable vocabulary was about
4,000 words (root words or lemmas) for the 4th grade. High Skool
graduates can usually manage about 17,000 words. Much of the
"fundamentals" consists of attaching names to concepts and
experiences. If you've ever had to limit your vocabulary to that of a
10 year old, you'll find the experience rather ummm.... frustrating.
Well, maybe not, as the typical television show targets about a 10
year old vocabulary.

Incidentally, I registered my personal philosophy as a domain name:
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
That should give you a clue as to how I view the learning experience.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS