> >No, I'm actually saying something that you're not understanding. I've tried
> >several techniques to communicate to you and seem to have failed. It's
> >frustrating, but in a way ironically amusing to find myself on the "other"
> >side of this learning experience.
I know how Richard feels. Haven't you ever had a student that /almost/
grasp a concept, but just couldn't get it, Tad? You tried every analogy
you could think of, but couldn't find the right one, exasperated at your
own inability to come up with a way of stating it that would click for
them? I have a friend that teaches Media Studies at a junior high school
(this week he introduced them to memetics using an analysis of a McDonald's
commercial!) we've talked about this before. How a good teacher tries to
say the same things in about 27,000 different ways until one of them is
the way the student learns that concept. Unfortunately, most of us can
only come up with five or six ways of restating the same thing differently.
We are only human.
Tad wrote:
> A great MS Flip example: it is YOUR mind which is not capable of grasping
> it. How, for example, God can love and allow atrocities at the same time;
> aliens can only talk to *me*; you are a sinner if you don't see the
> emperor's clothes.
> Any children around here, btw?
I'm trying to be as a child, but my existing models keep getting in the
way!!! If I could temporarily unlearn some things I'm sure I could learn
others that would make the first even more useful. But I am not a child
and my mind is filled with selfish thoughts, like a cluttered room. (Where
am I going to put this new couch! I need it, but... oh, well, I guess
it'll just have to sit on the lawn in the rain. I can't rearrange anything
in here after all--I like it too much this way! Too bad there's no room
for guests to sit down, though. If only I had a couch..) But sometimes, on
my good days, I skip and play and sing out loud to no one in particular.
There is hope!
For me at least.
-Prof. Tim