Epistemological Pluralism, Papert/Turkle, and MicroWorlds
I'm not going to be able to hold out much longer. I've now read Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete twice - all the while working on patches, quilts, and other fun projects in MicroWorlds. The correlation is so obvious - I want (need) to post about it in Bb. I keep waiting, hoping another cadre member will post first. I feel like I'm overplaying the role of early adopter and first to post. I remember what it's like to be that kid in class who always raises their hand first - the other kids don't always like that kid very much. There was a time when I didn't care about that so much, now it seems that I do. Ironically - being the "first" is not (and I don't think ever really was) my motivation. I'm just so honestly and fundamentally excited about each new project, each new reading, each new discussion. I want to talk/discuss/debate! I want to know if others are seeing the correlations that I'm seeing, and, if they aren't, I want to know what they are seeing, how they are applying it to their experience. I think I waited too long to go back to school, I should have done this years ago.... I forgot how nourishing intelligent, deep, discourse and dialogue about a focused subject is.
As I work on my patches, quilts, and other little creations, I begin to observe myself work. I become a sort of disembodied third party and try to establish whether I favor the soft approach or hard approach to knowledge. I wonder if it is abnormal to use both, to move from one to the other based on ... well... based on what? I read about Lisa - who is a poet and believes she is "bad at math," "good with words, not numbers," who is most comfortable with a distinctly 'soft' approach. I look for the connection to my own ways of seeing, ways of knowing. I ask myself, do I identify with Lisa? I too write poetry, create art in a variety of mediums; in these ways, I am like her. But - I also like numbers and have always 'known' that I was good at math. So - I am not completely like her. I read about Robin, the musician, who "masters her music by perfecting the smallest little bits of pieces and then building up." This is how I learn both choreography and dance technique, this is also how I choreograph. But - unlike Lisa and Robin, I don't mind the idea of 'black-boxing' so much... I do suppose I would prefer to create the black boxes myself though. When I write my turtle procedures for instance, I write them a step at a time, a movement at a time... but once I establish the movement pattern I want (the picture I want) - then I turn the whole series of steps into a procedure and give it some kind of code name... I black-box them. Of course - since I'm the one who created the procedure, there is transparency (at least for me) and I am able to change it later if I want to... so maybe this is still a predominantly soft approach.
Another question: is the difference between the soft approach and the hard approach really akin to the difference between the abstract and the concrete? If so... and if, as the article postulates, girls demonstrate a greater affinity for the soft approach and boys for the hard approach, then does that explain why girls are (or seem to be) 'good at math' in the early grades but boys excel in the later grades? After all - the majority of mathematics taught in the early grades is fairly concrete - or is demonstrated w/ predominantly concrete applications. Math in later grades becomes increasingly abstract. If I continue down this road of questioning, then does the fact that I loved the higher math (algebra, calculus, physics) mean that I favor a hard approach or does it simply mean that I see concrete applications rather than purely abstract ones? What about the logic puzzles I love so much - are they an example of something that requires a hard or soft approach - or will either work?
This comparison between abstract and concrete brings me back to MicroWorlds = this time to making a quilt. As I think back on my methods, I realize that I approached creating a quilt similar to the way I approach choreographing a dance, designing/creating a costume, or creating a piece of visual art (photograph, collage, painting, etc). I could not create a quilt by simply writing a bunch of lines of code. Rather, I brought all the various patches onto the stage and then began to move them around, place them adjacent to other patches, rotate them, etc. I kept manipulating the patches until what I saw on the stage was pleasing to my eye. That is, in fact, how I created my own individual patches too... moving lines and patterns around within the frame until it felt finished. Once I created a pattern that felt right visually, then I went about figuring out how to move the turtles to created it. I didn't try to write the most efficient way of creating it either. Rather, I found as I watch myself work, that the pathways the turtles took to get to each spot on the quilt were also important to me. Here again - the analogy, for me, is that of choreographing a dance. The creating of the visual pattern itself (the map) was more like creating a costume design, a photo, or a painting, but because the turtles had to move to make the quilt, it was also a dance. Come to think of it - much of choreography is about creating a visual picture - a dynamic, evolving, visual picture in motion, but a visual picture none the less. So - when I look at all these steps from the outside - I see a predominantly soft approach - in fact, I see a completely soft approach. Ironically, as I made my decisions about which pathways on the stage each turtle would take to get to its next place, I recognized that there were often more efficient ways of getting there and consciously rejected most of them in favor of paths that I found more aesthetically pleasing. I didn't even ask myself why I found them more aesthetically pleasing, I just accepted that I did.
This project in combination with he article has been something of a revelation for me. I've always thought of myself (identified myself even) as someone who has achieved and maintains a balance between the "hard" ("mathematical," "logical," "scientific") approach and the "soft" ("creative," "artistic," "expressive," "emotional," "physical") approach. Reading this article and working with MicroWorlds leads me to question that. I don't question that I am good at math, science, logic, etc. and I don't question that I am also a talented and accomplished artist (in several respects) - but I wonder if what I always viewed as the "Left Brain" side of my interests and talents are really demonstrative of the same "soft" approach that I associate with the "Right Brain" side. I think I'll be pondering this for quite some time.
As I work on my patches, quilts, and other little creations, I begin to observe myself work. I become a sort of disembodied third party and try to establish whether I favor the soft approach or hard approach to knowledge. I wonder if it is abnormal to use both, to move from one to the other based on ... well... based on what? I read about Lisa - who is a poet and believes she is "bad at math," "good with words, not numbers," who is most comfortable with a distinctly 'soft' approach. I look for the connection to my own ways of seeing, ways of knowing. I ask myself, do I identify with Lisa? I too write poetry, create art in a variety of mediums; in these ways, I am like her. But - I also like numbers and have always 'known' that I was good at math. So - I am not completely like her. I read about Robin, the musician, who "masters her music by perfecting the smallest little bits of pieces and then building up." This is how I learn both choreography and dance technique, this is also how I choreograph. But - unlike Lisa and Robin, I don't mind the idea of 'black-boxing' so much... I do suppose I would prefer to create the black boxes myself though. When I write my turtle procedures for instance, I write them a step at a time, a movement at a time... but once I establish the movement pattern I want (the picture I want) - then I turn the whole series of steps into a procedure and give it some kind of code name... I black-box them. Of course - since I'm the one who created the procedure, there is transparency (at least for me) and I am able to change it later if I want to... so maybe this is still a predominantly soft approach.
Another question: is the difference between the soft approach and the hard approach really akin to the difference between the abstract and the concrete? If so... and if, as the article postulates, girls demonstrate a greater affinity for the soft approach and boys for the hard approach, then does that explain why girls are (or seem to be) 'good at math' in the early grades but boys excel in the later grades? After all - the majority of mathematics taught in the early grades is fairly concrete - or is demonstrated w/ predominantly concrete applications. Math in later grades becomes increasingly abstract. If I continue down this road of questioning, then does the fact that I loved the higher math (algebra, calculus, physics) mean that I favor a hard approach or does it simply mean that I see concrete applications rather than purely abstract ones? What about the logic puzzles I love so much - are they an example of something that requires a hard or soft approach - or will either work?
This comparison between abstract and concrete brings me back to MicroWorlds = this time to making a quilt. As I think back on my methods, I realize that I approached creating a quilt similar to the way I approach choreographing a dance, designing/creating a costume, or creating a piece of visual art (photograph, collage, painting, etc). I could not create a quilt by simply writing a bunch of lines of code. Rather, I brought all the various patches onto the stage and then began to move them around, place them adjacent to other patches, rotate them, etc. I kept manipulating the patches until what I saw on the stage was pleasing to my eye. That is, in fact, how I created my own individual patches too... moving lines and patterns around within the frame until it felt finished. Once I created a pattern that felt right visually, then I went about figuring out how to move the turtles to created it. I didn't try to write the most efficient way of creating it either. Rather, I found as I watch myself work, that the pathways the turtles took to get to each spot on the quilt were also important to me. Here again - the analogy, for me, is that of choreographing a dance. The creating of the visual pattern itself (the map) was more like creating a costume design, a photo, or a painting, but because the turtles had to move to make the quilt, it was also a dance. Come to think of it - much of choreography is about creating a visual picture - a dynamic, evolving, visual picture in motion, but a visual picture none the less. So - when I look at all these steps from the outside - I see a predominantly soft approach - in fact, I see a completely soft approach. Ironically, as I made my decisions about which pathways on the stage each turtle would take to get to its next place, I recognized that there were often more efficient ways of getting there and consciously rejected most of them in favor of paths that I found more aesthetically pleasing. I didn't even ask myself why I found them more aesthetically pleasing, I just accepted that I did.
This project in combination with he article has been something of a revelation for me. I've always thought of myself (identified myself even) as someone who has achieved and maintains a balance between the "hard" ("mathematical," "logical," "scientific") approach and the "soft" ("creative," "artistic," "expressive," "emotional," "physical") approach. Reading this article and working with MicroWorlds leads me to question that. I don't question that I am good at math, science, logic, etc. and I don't question that I am also a talented and accomplished artist (in several respects) - but I wonder if what I always viewed as the "Left Brain" side of my interests and talents are really demonstrative of the same "soft" approach that I associate with the "Right Brain" side. I think I'll be pondering this for quite some time.
posted by susan | 5:49 PM
1 Comments:
This is a good outlet for exploring ideas and not losing them. It is hard to engage others in our thinking process and they often have their own paths through the content--sometimes the paths overlap and other times they don't. I would pick the ideas you are most excited about sharing and trying to see who they connect to what others are thinking about. If you want to know what others are thinking, ask them.
Margaret
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