CuppaGemma

“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” Richard Feynman

Information in stacks and piles can clutter our heads with so much white noise we will forget the process of analyzing and understanding.

We won’t be able to figure what something is about, nor whether it is relevant to us or anyone else. We are like audio or video records that simply repeat the images that have been played in front of them.

Memorization of facts for facts sake have never impressed me. Perhaps at a pub in the evening it can make for frivolous banter and earn the accolade of another round, but what is known when you only can state data and information. That’s what we have libraries and resources for. Look it up, and double check your citation.

The challenge is to do something with bits of information more than recite it or put it in a pretty font and report.  What makes a magpie sing, and what sort of folks remember Heckle and Jeckle first?

My thirteen year old and I have had several heated discussions on this.

We share the same belief that simply reciting back data and putting in a different organized way is not a very compelling project. Neither to do nor to experience. It lacks both oomph and energy, but also has no way to sustain engagement.  Or in his words- “Who’s gonna care?”

This however does not excuse him from his social studies assignment. Indeed Mom and his teacher will care about incomplete work. He would much rather muck around and do some of Edison’s experiments than draw a life timeline and rewrite a bio.

“But mom, I want to DO stuff, not REWRITE stuff.” As far as he is concerned there is no building or mechanics when you work with words.

He makes the same point that I did (unsuccessfully) when I was a teenager- “If I know where to find it why do I have to bother to remember it?”

Isn’t the understanding how to get information and then doing something with it more important than say the ability to name every state flower?

Which sort of pushes the question, “So you don’t want me to think about it all or do something with it or be able use this all somehow, or even apply it to another conversation or an idea just memorize and rewrite it?”

That’s when we sigh together.

Well yes, for now.

Do the assignment on spec, be responsible and accountable as a seventh grader. Later on though we we sit  late at night- then tell me all about how your want to muck and think. What experiments you want to do or modify. That’s what we engage in and remember.

It’s about understanding.