[xmca] culture as function

Sasha:

Needed time to process this entire discussion and hope that this reply
finds you still interested in partaking. I am understanding more your line
of thinking when you state that I am not after the welder being enlightened
by my request but rather am after getting iron brackets that serve my
purpose. Yes practice is the beginning of my conversation with the welder.
My parallel was to the 'functional method of double stimulation' and how I
was leading the welder to understanding with gestures and a drawing. My
point will be stymied (an old golfing term not used anymore because players
are allowed to mark their ball on the green) because the sakharov
experiment is not based in useful practice but rather the 'hunt' for
nonsense words. However, doesn't child play also parallel the 'hunt' for
nonsense words, when the brother calls his sister Ra-ra instead of Sarah?
Doesn't the development of language in the child begin with the child being
able to utter the word beautiful and have it describe a wooden block or
whatever catches the child's eye?

I want to switch just a bit and move to the formal category of schooling.
In science we could allow the student to experiment with physics to
understand simple tools but how long should she be allowed to experiment
and if we did not intervene one student may call the incline plane a
'thingy' and the other a 'widget'. Perhaps practice is where the word
evolved from but during instruction shouldn't we begin with the word that
represents the concept and then allow the student to practice so they can
rise to the concrete? just some thoughts and thank you for your
participation

eric

_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
Received on Wed May 21 03:42 PDT 2008