Saturday, December 24, 2011

An imagined conversation

Dewey: “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our students of tomorrow.” (This is an actual quote)
Chesterton: Equally, if we teach for tomorrow, we rob our students of yesterday.
Certain unnamed “educators”: At least one thing is certain, our students will be robbed… 

3 comments:

  1. 1. If the syntax of our mechanism for transmitting information remains static, we necessarily admit the potential of failing to most successfully transmit new information by relying on a mechanism of transmission that does not account for the content of that new information in the design of its syntax.
    2. If the syntax of our mechanism for transmitting information is adapted based upon new information, we necessarily admit the potential for paradigm shifts that could lead to the loss of former paradigms of equal or greater relative value.
    3. As (1) and (2) are mutually exclusive, theoretical loss to the recipient of the transmission of information is unavoidable.

    That's what I read here. Of course, my personal opinion is that there is a method of transcendence to every instance of perceived mutual exclusivity. For instance, if three categories of information can be defined for this problem:
    A. Raw information
    B. Information defining the paradigm(s) manifested by (A)
    C. Information defining the syntax of the mechanism for transmitting (A) and therefore (B), given (A)
    then we could define i=((A)+(B)+(C))@X where X is a specific point in time (from the perspective of the individual in question, but more accurately, or objectively, a specific quantity and composition of (A)). With this we could define a set [i, ii, iii...] where each new object in the set is manifested at a new point in time [X,Y,Z...] and represents with perfect accuracy the value of (A)+(B)+(C) at that time. We may then accomplish two rather incredible feats. First, we may construct a new set of items, [A2,B2,C2] that share the same definitions as [A,B,C] except that (A2)=[i,ii,iii...]. This accomplishes the transcendence necessary to overcome the problem posed by (3). However, perhaps even more interestingly, we may also cycle the consciousness between a consideration of [A2,B2,C2] and a consideration of only a single object out of any in the set [i,ii,iii...]. This type of activity provides the additional possibility of attaining an extreme degree of empathy throughout a variety of situations when a consideration of only [A2,B2,C2] might render such empathy impossible.

    Just a thought.

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  2. Frankly, I may just be bewildered, but I think you missed the point.... (perhaps intentionally)

    That said, I look forward to proofs of your transcendent pedagogy.

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  3. Ok. I have prepared a discourse on the topic that I feel is sufficiently elaborated and sufficiently accompanied with examples to be more comprehensible. I don't wish to inconvenience you however, so I must say it is 4073 words in length. However, I believe you might find it of interest nevertheless, and I wished to be thorough so that you could follow my exact thought process if you wished to.

    If you think you might be interested message me on Facebook to let me know an e-mail address that would be good to send it to. Also, I would appreciate a message in the case that you are not interested as well, just so I will not need to continue checking to see if I have received a message.

    Also, I would be interested in hearing your explanation of what precisely is "the point" of this post, if you are up for it.

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