Dear Jinan,
Great topic - huge area.
I am very interested in the stuff about children and education. I spent
last night looking through the Apple Apps shop and the Android Market,
looking for educational materials for my grand children. Many of the
apps make the fundamental mistake that you point out - that is, they
presume that children like or are attracted to bright colours. As
someone who suffered from cognitive overload from colours, as a child, I
made sure my children did not have their brains filled with strong
colours. It is hugely distracting to many children.
So, anyway, I found a basic app that uses the model of wooden blocks
for help with counting and the alphabet. The author pointed out that he
had experience with graphics and had selected soft pastel colours and
proper educational fonts. All good. I'm not so sure about the use of
wood grain and 3D blocks but I'll leave that one alone (the benefits and
downsides of the virtual).
The app lays out the number blocks in a normal sequence and then
presents the viewer with a selection of fruits on a plate. The viewer
(inter-actor?) is given a verbal prompt such as : "how many pieces of
fruit are there?" This is a rather abstract way of asking a child a
question. My wife, who is a former infants and primary school literacy
and numeracy specialist teacher suggested that the prompt should have
been something like: "How many pieces of fruit do YOU see?" It is
refreshing to be reminded how quickly a teacher can bring learning in to
focus. You must personalise learning. Someone learns something.
Now to the philosphical agony at the centre of my irritation with this
app (and there are hundreds more out there with similar issues). First
up, the viewer sees two plates. On each plate, there is a single orange.
The answer, one predicts, is two. Correct! Next, the viewer is presented
with three plates. On two of the plates, there is an single orange. On
the third plate, there are two cherries, joined together by their stems.
Ok! An orange on a plate might make a set such that each plate equals
one. Two cherries on a single plate, might, by the logic of sets, be
seen to constitute a single unit and hence be equal to one. So, on set
theory, the answer in three. Correct! Now, the brain of the average four
year old says that there are three objects called plates, two different
varieties of fruit and four instances of individual fruit so the answer,
whatever it is, is NOT three pieces of fruit.
The simple solution? Show three oranges (minus plates). Then the
question becomes: "How many oranges do YOU see?"
Still Socrates would be troubled that this orange and that orange and
then another orange will always be this orange and that orange and
another orange. That is, there will never be a thing such that it is
three oranges.
All the best with your project.
Keith
>>> Jinan K B <[log in to unmask]> 12/13/11 9:35 PM >>>
Dear Martin
Dear Martin
I have been studying children of no literate communities for about 20
years now and have come to realize that modern people have completely
misunderstood children and also cognition or learning process. Please
see a small movie about children at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNFM-uUzqE8.
The myth that children like bright colours, children need toys etc are
the out come of such myths.
i have started an initiative called re imagining schools. This is a
totally radical experiement in relooking at every thing related to
schooling. See the blog reimaginingschools.wordpress.com for details.
Basically I am responding to how human organism learns. This is in
response to the biological propensities in humanbeings.
All said and done we finally end up fragmented, linear, mind body
seperation, etc etc and we need to try to understand how this happens.
This situation is only for the so called educated. naturally it must
be something in education that does this to us.
I have been also studying what i call as the cognitive damages of
schooling. Will send some thing on this later.
Jinan
On 13/12/2011, Salisbury, Martin <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Dear Jinan
>
> I am very interested to hear about your research. I recently
presented at a
> conference with one of my former PhD students, Katherina Manolessou,
a paper
> titled 'Being There: The role of place in children's picturebooks'.
We are
> just finalising the text-based version at the moment. I also wrote on
the
> subject a few years back in an article for 'Bookbird: A Journal of
> International Children's Literature', titled 'No Red Buses Please',
looking
> at the tyranny of the global co-edition and it's increasing
inclination to
> remove a sense of place and local culture from the picturebook.
>
> http://angliaruskin.openrepository.com/arro/handle/10540/110377
>
> I'd be interested to hear more about your work.
>
> Best regards
>
> Martin
>
> Professor Martin Salisbury
> Course Leader, MA Children's Book Illustration
> 0845 196 2351
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/ccbs.html
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related
> research in Design [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Jinan K
B
> [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:18 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: new member: homogenization of sense of beauty and
destruction of
> culture
>
> Friends
> My name is Jinan from India and my research is a round the impact
of
> design education in destroying cultural diversity. If any one is
doing
> some work i this area I would like to connect.
> This is a study of 20 long years working with rural/ tribal artisan
> communities, children and design students etc.
> The study focuses on how a homogenized and ontologicaly reversed
> design education impact the learner.
> My study has led me to explore biological basis for cognition,
> biological basis for beauty and biological basis for conduct.
> I would also like to bring in the concept of destructivity which is
> nothing but misplaced creativity.
>
> I presented a paper at the design education conference at Hong kong
on
> the issue of beauty and the abstract is pasted below.
> The link is http://designeducationasia.blogspot.com/
>
> *EDUCATION FOR AUTHETICITY AND CULTURAL ROOTEDNESS*.I am sending
the
> same for your reflections.The basic issue that I am addressing is
the
> homogenization of all cultures due to architects and designers
> creating artifacts and habitats with de contextualized aesthetic
> sense.
>
> abstract:The biggest threat of modernity is homogenization of the
> human cultures. The visual experience of modern spaces all over the
> world is beginning to look alike- Architecture, artifacts, life
style.
> About a century ago we had diverse cultures with a distinct way of
> life which defined our aesthetic sensibilities. The real issue is to
> understand how culture is formed and how cultural diversity could be
> retained. Culture is the result of how aesthetic sensibilities of
> people get manifested in the things they make and how they live, and
> aesthetic sensibilities were awakened naturally by engaging with
their
> contexts. In modern situation, Education conditions and homogenizes
> the
> sensibility of people through various subjects like art,
architecture,
> design etc. All over the world the same syllabus is taught! Hence if
> aesthetic education involves awakening the senses by creating
> situations for connecting to the natural context of the learners*
> lives, there is a potential for making the learner authentic and
> original. This authenticity will create rooted cultures and thus
> retain diversity.
>
> Jinan,
> 'DIGITAL MEDIUM IS A TOOL.DIGITALLY MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE DESTROYS THE
BEING'
>
> www.re-cognition.org
> www.kumbham.org
> http://my.opera.com/jinankb/blog/
> reimaginingschools.wordpress.com
> 09447121544
> 0487 2386723
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--
Jinan,
'DIGITAL MEDIUM IS A TOOL.DIGITALLY MEDIATED KNOWLEDGE DESTROYS THE
BEING'
www.re-cognition.org
www.kumbham.org
http://my.opera.com/jinankb/blog/
reimaginingschools.wordpress.com
09447121544
0487 2386723
|
