<br>On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Edward Cherlin <<a href="mailto:echerlin@gmail.com">echerlin@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">...snip...</div><br>
What we mostly don't have is a path by which children can be guided to<br>
discover much of this themselves. But we have bits and pieces of that<br>
path in work by Alan Kay, Seymour Papert and many others. I have<br>
thought of a few other bits that I hope will add to the enterprise<br>
when I get a chance to work them out in more detail and try them out<br>
on children.</blockquote><div><br><br>Here is link to <i>Boxes and Arrows</i>, October, 2005: <br>[begin]<br>
Studying the Creation of Kindergarten<br>
By Bill Lucas<br>
How does the pursuit of one man's interests result in the creation of<br>
kindergarten and timeless design principles? Bill Lucas shows us how<br>
Friedrich Fröbel took basic elements to create intricate, scalable systems<br>
that can serve as a model for creating new experiential systems today.<br>
<a href="http://boxesandarrows.com/archives/studying_the_creation_of_kindergarten.php" target="_blank">http://boxesandarrows.com/archives/studying_the_creation_of_kindergarten.php</a><br>[end]<br> <br>Edward Cherlin continues...<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
I think that the hard question is how to get teachers to discover<br>
enough of this to be able to use is effectively. Nobel laureate<br>
Richard Feynman said that we don't really understand a subject unless<br>
we can create freshman lecture on it. Mathematicians suggest trying to<br>
explain ideas to your grandmother. I propose that we find out how much<br>
of what we think we know we can explain to children and to teachers.<br></blockquote><div><br>Yes! My favorite triplet of quotes from Albert Einstein on this theme is...<br>1. "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."<br>
2. "If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough."<br>3. "It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid."<br><br>Cheers,<br>--ken ritchie (atlanta)<br><br>
Personal DISCLOSURE: <br>
I am enamored by Kindergarten (in the US) and Montessori schools, <br>
to a great extent because my wife is a veteran K through 3 teacher,<br>and from all reports quite an extraordinary, remarkable one at that! <br>We also had great *fun* raising two creative, articulate daughters.<br>;-)<br>
<br>"I am still learning." --Michaelangelo <br><br></div></div>