Illustration: A.L. Fuhrman"Pure Mathematics,
is in its way,
the Poetry of Logical Ideas"
(Albert Einstein)
This weekend I am re-reeding a tiny book (819 pp), an integrated approach to research in social and behavioural sciences (maths), and as always my thoughts went elsewhere. I can´t really understand why our kids must learn mathematics, by using numbers. How interesting it would be to use non counting logic, like poetry and art, meaning turning the process upside down. It probably would result in an understanding of logical thinking as well as an urge to get tools for using it, those tools would of course be numbers, because it would take to much space to write with words, sentences and so when communicating the logics.
If allowed kids, would first use play as a communicative tool to display their thoughts to others. When other kids unite in the play, the play will turn into a game, because they make up rules for the play, games follows logics or rules :-)
How much funnier it is to read this English book having this metaphor in my head. After every chapter I summarize into dramaturgy. Another win is that it besides the semantic memory and perceptual memory also falls into my episodic memory, which makes it much easier to remember and have access to. Knowledge, is like a fresh fruit, it rotten after a short while, but the logic behind getting the new knowledge is a game we need to play every time we meet something we don't understand.
In the Midst of Wondering by,
Anna-Lys
17 comments:
that would be wonderful if the academic world would stop perpetuating the status quo and try somthing different like you suggest. but remember what descartes said regarding mathematics,"it's all greek to me".
Spennede filosofering fra din kant i dag da :-))
Wonderful post Anna-lys.
Learn tp play,
Play to learn.
pop and see the latest built Steam Engine = The Tornado.
Hello Anna-Lys! I've been away training for a while (taking a day off to enjoy the sunshine), but will be back to my lessons again soon. Meantime, after reading this post, I see why I have missed visiting your blog while I've been away.
I thought you might be interested to know that in our art, the old man refuses to give the techniques names because the early masters found that people who assigned names to movements seemed to understand the movements less than those who did not use names.
Math is, along with steam engines, my favourite subject. Assuming children are eager learning math, there is no problem. The assumption, they are not, suggests trouble. A swedish writer solved the problem by calling her book in mathematics "Fun Math". What Anna Lys writes here, resembles the title of that book. I admit, that I don't follow. Numbers distinguish arithmetics, which is an element of mathematics, but other parts, like geometry, are based upon other entities. Math is about solving problems. The qoute from Einstein tmplies there is something called "logic", that everyone should know. That I don't believe. Russell said, logics is a part of mathematics. I think this statement has been proven false. There are many independent discpilines of problem-solving. None is the master of the others. They are like different languages. When we want to accomplish something, we can use the method we like best, but I doubt such facilities as the atomic bomb, would have been constructed without numbers.
You may solve all your problems with a decent iron rod(på svenska)
/r
Both poetry and math have their places.
Mathematics is poetry and art when it works out right.
We that delve into numbers are always on the lookout for the elegant solution.
I enjoy multiplication.
i remember the students in my school using a rhyming mnemonic method that also involved hand motions to help them with learn their multiplication tables. i do know that other 'fun' methods are used too. but, just the other day a teacher came up to me and asked me if i could teach a math concept that her students had trouble understanding in her class. i teach art. she was teaching geometry.
i love how you think.
of course, mathematics s important. i'd hate to think of somebody designing an aircraft or power plant or medical device without being exact.
but too, true creativity occurs in the arts. numbers in a creative mind can be so much more than mere measurement.
1+1=3 , for large values of 1
'education' will remain such as it is
because the system is incestuous, not accepting anything from outside its own circle...
And how sure are you that that is not the way it happened?
The humans put the world into boxes - not the nature.
Re your comments: Maybe I'm in the mist of wondering.... :-)
"Not all those who wOnder are lost"...
This is an example of Vogon Poetry:
"Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee
That mordiously hath bitled out
Its earted jurtles
Into a rancid festering [drowned out by moaning and screaming]
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts
And living glupules frart and slipulate
Like jowling meated liverslime
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don't. "
(from The Hichhiker's Guide).
I think numbers are beautiful, compared to that rubbish.
Deep Thought! What did Einstein say about Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything?
Post a Comment