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learning


Contents:

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news





random sound bytes about teaching / education / learning


see also #homeschooling
See also 3d_design.html

misc education

Paul: "My teacher just reviewed
everything we studied in the class -- all the equations, all the terms,
everything that's going to be on the final.
-- in 40 minutes. I wish he had just told us this stuff at the start of the year.
When you teach a class, maybe you should say all that stuff up front --
-- make the very first class of the semester exactly like
the last class of the semester."

"We expect students who are learning to write prose
to read *lots* of examples of good prose;
why not the same for students learning to write programs ?"
-- Samadzadeh, possibly quoting someone else.




homeschooling


(and a few highly biased comments on public schools)




the family altar, the church, and the private schools,
supported entirely by private contributions.
Keep the church and the state forever separated. -- Ulysses S. Grant




periodic tables



[This is an old archive of
http://visual.wiki.taoriver.net/moin.cgi/TableOfElements∞
]






history


At most schools, students spend a lot of time learning about past history.
But almost no time learning about future history [FIXME: future_history.html ].
Why not ?




the human brain


the human brain.

There are many things unknowns_faq.html#AI
we still do not know about the human brain.


what we already know about the brain



see also
Direct Brain Connection wearable_electronic.html#jack
"direct mind-machine interfaces"
and
DNA information link_farm.html#dna
[FIXME: collect other /brain/ info here]



has a cute little jigsaw puzzle of the brain
http://www.brainplace.com/bp/brainpuzzle/∞
.
  • http://brighamrad.harvard.edu/education.html∞ points to several brain atlases including



    • <PRE>
    Date: Mon, 22 Apr 1996
    From: transhuman@umich.edu
    Subject: >H Digest
    ...
    From: Mitchell Porter <qix@desire.apana.org.au>
    Subject: Re: >H Big numbers and supercomputers

    Transhuman Mailing List

    [Max More]
    > Further to David Cary's helpful summary of units for very large and small
    > numbers, here's some mouth-watering stuff from the new issue of Business
    > Week (April 29 issue). The feature is called "Speed gets a whole new meaning."
    >
    > The story describes the quest for ever more powerful supercomputers, the
    > current record holder being a 281 gigaflops machine built by an Intel-Sandia
    > team. By November Sandia labs will install a new Intel machine, a $46
    > million computer "capable of cracking the long-time fantasy speed of 1
    > teraflops. That's computer speak for a trillion calculations per second."
    > That machine may actually manage 1.8 teraflops.

    ... the processing capacity of the brain has not been reliably
    determined. But a fair estimate is that the 1.5 kilogram organ
    has 10^10 neurons with 10^3 synapses firing an average 10 times
    per second, which is about 10^14 bits/second. Using 64-bit words
    like the largest supercomputers, that's about one teraflop.
    -Robert A Freitas, "The Future of Computers", _Analog_,
    March 1996.
    </PRE>



    </ul>






    <p>
    ...



    http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19990904032235data_trunc_sys.shtml∞
    "the University of Washington husband-wife team of developmental scientists Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl and University of California, Berkeley, psychologist Alison Gopnik, in their new book, 'The Scientist in the Crib.'

    Their book is a humorous exploration of how babies learn,
    ...
    Patricia Kuhl says, "We are born to teach, we do this naturally and quite unconsciously. It seems as if nature designed us to teach babies in the same way it designed babies to learn."
    ...
    Developmental scientists are in the crib trying to understanding babies, but when the babies look up they are also trying to understand us.
    ...
    According to Meltzoff, "...
    We have this curiosity that in children is called play. Scientists just have bigger and more expensive toys. It's not that children are little scientists but that scientists are big children."
    ...

    http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20000916042208data_trunc_sys.shtml∞
    "Bioengineers at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
    ...
    have uncovered some of the algorithms of learning, the "primitives" the brain uses to comprehend the world.
    ...
    The primitives demonstrate why certain tasks are hard for us to learn, and that there may be fundamental limitations to what is learnable by the human brain.

    In an article in the October 12 issue of Nature, Kurt Thoroughman, a graduate student in biomedical engineering, and Reza Shadmehr, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering and neuroscience, report mathematically deconstructing the learning process."


    surface and overlay of functional data onto the reconstructed surface.</q>





    --
    _The Age of Spiritual Machines:
    When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence_
    book by Ray Kurzwell
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0670882178/donlancastersgurA/002-9202282-0684630∞







    learning by doing in mass quantities



    "mass quantity leads to quality" quotes:



    <p>
    (see also
    "How to write a novel in 100 days or less"
    http://communicationnation.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-to-write-novel-in-100-_113168272037911680.html∞ )



    David> My question is this: Do you think one can really take good
    David> photographs and develop and mature as a photographer with a
    David> point-and-shoot, or is it necessary to have an SLR?

    The best piece of advice I've ever seen on this subject came from a
    photo workshop I took a number of years ago. Two pieces, actually:

    1) There are only two difficult parts of photography: Where to stand
    and when to press the button. Everything else is just technique.

    2) Everyone is born with 10,000 bad pictures inside. You have to
    take all the bad ones before you can start taking the good ones.

    When you've taken your 10,000 bad pictures, you'll know beyond
    question what kind of equipment you need to realize your photographic
    vision. Until then, use what you have and don't worry about it.

    --
    Andrew Koenig,
    http://www.talkaboutphotography.com/group/alt.photography/messages/6277.html∞






    the bootstrap problem


    The bootstrapping problem.
    Also known as
    "the chicken and egg problem".

    related to
    General Design 3d_design.html

    A big part of
    nanotech design today (FIXME: nanotech.html )
    is trying to deal with the bootstrap problem.

    A subset of the bootstrap problem is the problem of closure
    3d_design.html#closure
    (FIXME: is there a better term for "Quantitative parts closure" "self-hosting", "AutocatalyticSet", ? ).



    Ch. 21
    p. 160:
    <blockquote>
    <p>
    civilizations ... fall into dark ages.
    They become ... primitive.
    ...
    Doesn't rebuilding a civilization take dozens of years ?
    ...
    How long does it take to start a new civilization from scratch ?
    ...
    We have a good general library on board.
    Original inventors don't know where they're going;
    ...
    But we know everything about making airplanes and such;
    we know hundreds of ways of going at it. ...
    we can find the quickest way to go
    from medieval to specific inventions...
    </blockquote>
    <p>
    Ch. 22
    p. 165:
    <blockquote>
    <p>
    "jumpstarting" technology ...
    the "rediscovery" problem ...
    the Applied History of Technology.
    ...
    One of the favorite games was to devise minimal paths
    from a given level of technology
    back to the highest level
    that could be supported in the Slowness.
    The details depended on many things ...
    the amount of residual scientific awareness (or tolerance),
    and the physical nature of the race.
    The historian's theories were captured in
    programs whose inputs were
    facts about the civilization's plight and the desired results,
    and whose outputs were
    the steps that would most quickly produce those results.
    ...
    "Is radio something they can produce quickly,
    from a standing start ?" ...
    "Indeed, my lady Ravna. There are
    simple tricks that are almost never noticed
    till a very high technology is attained.
    For instance,
    quantum torsion antennas can be built
    from silver and cobalt steel arrays, if the
    geometry is correct.
    Unfortunately, finding the proper geometry involves
    lots of theory and
    the ability to solve some large partial differential equations.
    There are many Slow Zoners who never discover the principles.
    </blockquote>
    <p>
    Ch. 23
    p. 176
    <blockquote>
    <p>
    Jefri ... had a sudden insight,
    something that many adults in technical cultures never attain.
    "I use these things all the time,
    but I don't know exactly how they work.
    We can follow these directions,
    but how would we know what to change ?"
    Amdi was getting all excited now...
    <q>
    No, no, no. We don't have to understand everything.
    ...
    The directions include options for making small changes.
    ...
    I think we can expand the tables
    ...
    </q>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
    ch. 25
    p. 191
    <blockquote>
    <p>
    <q>
    ... Sure, <em>in principle</em>
    we gave them enough information to do the mod.
    It looks to me like making this expanded spec table
    is equivalent to solving a, hmm... a 500 node numerical PDE.
    And little Jefri claims that all his datasets are destroyed...
    </q>
    ...
    <q>
    ... I see what you mean.</q>
    You get so used to everyday tools, sometimes you forget
    what it must be like without them.
    </blockquote>










    <p><b>Brain:</b> (grabbing Pinky by the nose) Pinkey! Did you hear that?
    Type one! Do you know what that means?
    <p><b>Pinky:</b> A little bit less than type two? Poit!
    <p><b>Billie:</b> (laughs)
    <p><b>Brain:</b> No, Pinky, it means nothing less than total world domination!
    <p><b>Pinky:</b> I don't understand, Brain.
    ...
    <p><b>Brain:</b> That's not surprising. There are four civilization types.
    The fouth type uses the energy of the whole universe.
    The third, a galaxy.
    The second, a star.
    Type one civilizations use all the energy of a single world. This world, Pinky.
    <p>
    ...
    <p><b>Billie:</b> We're not dealing with human technology here, Eggy.
    These rats developed all this stuff from scratch.
    </blockquote>


    Yin being flesh Yang being steel, Seperate, Equal, but intertwined. The cyborg.
    ...
    In other words we must
    become borg to become borg. Therefore the plan as it is now, is to enhance
    develop that suitable design to integrate our technology with ourselves as we
    are, Then we "chimny" or "bootstrap" ourslves ..."
    --
    From: ogrimes at bellatlantic.net (Alan Grimes)
    Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 17:00:08
    To: transhuman at logrus.org




    ... a cascade of machinery ...


    FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt)


    See
    FearUncertaintyDoubt
    .

    language learning


    "How I Learned French in One Year" / "Rapid Language Learning" by Konstantin Ryabitsev 2004
    [http://www.ludism.org/mentat/HowILearnedFrenchInOneYear∞]
    [http://mirror.mricon.com/french/french.html∞]
    [http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/29/15258/287∞]

    "natural languages I want to learn" by David Cary
    [http://david.carybros.com/html/idea_space.html#languages_to_learn∞]


    unsorted






    and examples of electronic communication working better (and worse)
    than face-to-face communication.
    http://web.mit.edu/techreview/www/articles/ma98/ross-flanigan.html∞


    </blockquote>
    <p>
  • - Ars Robotica: Interview with Neil Fraser
    http://arsrobotica.com/display.php3?blogid=118∞












    • <li>
    Tools and Techniques for Improving your Memory
    (learning vs. memorizing)
    ("Learning is fun, but learning really quickly is more fun." -- MrBlack 2001-10-25)
    ("nothing beats flash cards for rote memorization")
    (mind maps)
    (Mnemonics)
    <li>
    resources for learning foreign languages
    <li>
    "3. Maryland had 98% literacy (2% illiteracy)
    before the introduction of compulsory schooling (at gunpoint!),
    and has never exceeded 91% (9% illiteracy, over 4x worse) since."
  • - leonbrooks <li>
    shorthand [FIXME: read ?]
    <li>
    the Columbine massacre, and its aftermath

    • <li>
    "Stuff I wished I had learned in college" --
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21850&cid=2370845∞
    <ul>
    <li>Resume writing
    <li>Researching companies as potential employers
    <li>Interviewing skills
    <li>Networking
    <li>"How to negotiate your total offer package
    (i.e. salary, benefits, stock options, joy ride in the company lear jet, etc)"
    <li>
    "it's not enough to
    have a lot of friends OR
    be amazingly good at what you're doing --
    you gotta have BOTH"
  • - solios 2001-09-30 <li>
    "As far as researching companies as potential employers,
    I would think this would fall under general research skills and
    the ability to question.
    I want people around me who have these abilities and
    apply them to every aspect of their lives,
    not just in the job search."
  • - BWJones <li>
    "MGMT 424, Interpersonal relations in organizations.
    ... how to deal with interoffice politics,
    how to deal with irate customers and employees.
    How to network and how to express your opinions without rubbing off the wrong way.
    Overall, I feel it was the most useful class I had in college."
  • - asv108 </ul>

    • <li>
    open-source books
    <li>
    online education (web-based education)
    <li>etc.
    </ul>









    Twenty-five million teenagers attend 20,000 schools nationwide.
    Ten students in seven schools committed the widely-publicized shootings of the past 18 months.
    Teenage gunners are not representatives of all teens, even alienated, outcast ones, but
    are rare, extremely disturbed individuals.
    There is no evidence that adolescents are more troubled than adults or
    any more disturbed today than they ever were.
    ...
    <p>
    Exaggerating rare instances of teenage rage into some kind of generation-wide craziness
    not only inflicts unwarranted paranoia, blanket surveillance, draconian restrictions and
    harmful interference with normal growing up on a generally healthy generation of young people,
    it also severely hampers investigation into identifying and forestalling the narrow,
    individual psychoses that produce rage killers of all ages.
    ...
    <p>
    The baseless panic about young people inflamed by so many politicians,
    leading psychologists, pundits and institutional scholars
    is more damaging to our social fabric than the isolated teenage murders they seize upon. ...
    even as they ignore more compelling evidence of deteriorating adult behavior.
    This subversion of health and safety goals to politically warped,
    crowd-pleasing nostrums about "saving our kids" endangers kids in reality
    </blockquote>

    learning about it is fun. However, most people never figure that out,
    so they need some _other_ motivation to learn it.
    <p>
    ...
    <p>
    The fact that you're asking the question suggests that no one has told
    you what the _point_ of calculus is, in which case you might be
    viewing it as just another set of tricks for pushing symbols around.

    </blockquote>

    saw a lot of questions on Cantor at the Dr. Math site), Rudy Rucker's
    book _Infinity and The Mind_ really explains all this stuff in a
    surprising amount of detail. Not all his books are all that great,
    but this one is a real treat for laypeople interested in infinity."
    http://mathforum.org/dr.math/problems/bennett3.19.98.html∞










    but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
    --Marilyn vos Savant


    "The dumbing-down of programming: part 2:
    Returning to the source. Once knowledge disappears
    into code, how do we retrieve it ?"
    article by
    Ellen Ullman
    http://www.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/05/13feature.html∞
    <blockquote>
    <p>
    "the core group that once
    understood the issues has written its code and moved on; new
    programmers have come, left their bit of understanding in the
    code and moved on in turn. Eventually, no one individual or
    group knows the full range of the problem behind the program,
    the solutions we chose, the ones we rejected and why.
    ...
    <p>
    No one left who understands. Air-traffic control systems,
    bookkeeping, drafting, circuit design, spelling, differential
    equations, assembly lines, ordering systems, network object
    communications, rocket launchers, atom-bomb silos, electric
    generators, operating systems, fuel injectors, CAT scans, air
    conditioners -- an exploding list of subjects, objects and
    processes rushing into code, which eventually will be left
    running without anyone left who understands them. A world full
    of things like mainframe computers, which we can use or throw
    away, with little choice in between. A world floating atop a sea
    of programs we've come to rely on but no longer truly
    understand or control. Code and forget; code and forget:
    programming as a collective exercise in incremental forgetting.
    ..."
    </blockquote>
    [check out the "talk back" discussion at the end]
    [FIXME: copy to c_programming ? YARMAC ?]


    <li>'The Continuum Concept' by Jean Liedloff
    <li>'Deschooling Society' by Ivan Illich
    <li>'A Different Kind of Teacher' by John Taylor Gatto
    <li>'The Essential Montessori' by Elizabeth G. Hainstock
    <li>Freedom to Learn for the 80's' by Carl Rogers
    <li>'Growing Up Absurd' by Paul Goodman
    <li>'Guerilla Learning' by Grace Lewellyn
    <li>'How to Learn Anything Quickly' by Ricki Linksman
    <li>'Illiterate America' by Jonathan Kozol
    <li>'Innumeracy' by John Allen Paulos
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679726012/williamsh%20unnsinh/002-9973%20344-6258412/102-6815997-3617739∞
    <li>'Instead of Education' by John Holt
    <li>'Jean Piaget: The Man and His Ideas' by Richard I. Evans
    <li>'Learning All the Time' by John Holt
    <li>'Magical Child' by Joseph Chilton Pearce
    <li>'The Process of Education' by Jerome S. Bruner
    <li>'The Quality School' by William Glasser
    <li>'Schools without Failure' by William Glasser
    <li>'Superlearning' by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder
    <li>'Super Parents Super Children' by Frances Kendall
    <li>'Teaching as a Subversive Activity' by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner
    <li>'The Twelve Year Sentence' edited by William F. Rickenbacker

    </ul>




    <blockquote>
    <p>
    If I had one wish for our nation,<br>
    I would wish for a turn about of what we value in a person.<br>
    We value athletic prowess, and not intelligence.<br>
    We value physical attractiveness, and not beauty of the soul.<br>
    We value cunning and wealth, and not honesty and integrity.<br>
    These lessons should be taught to our youth.<br>
    Instead our schools demand athletic competition of every student,<br>
    and denigrate the scholar.<br>
    Failing to reward excellence rewards failure.<br>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
    -- Dr. L. Breur Krause http://www.cognitiveprofile.com/∞

    <p>
    <blockquote>
    <p>
    It's nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of
    instruction have not yet entirely strangled youthful curiosity, for
    this delicate plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need
    of freedom.<br>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
    -- Albert Einstein

    <p>
    http://amasci.com/we-nerds.html∞



    poetry that obeys some artificially-imposed constraint. For example, there
    are two published novels from which the letter 'e' is absent
    ...
    Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to figure out the
    constraint imposed on this poem."
    <p>
    MNEMONICS:
    Mnemonics Neatly Eliminate Mans Only Nemesis - Insufficient Cerebral Storage.
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/11.html∞








    by John H. Holland, Keith J. Holyoak, Richard E. Nisbett and Paul R. Thagard,
    book in the Computational Models of Cognition and Perception series.
    MIT Press, 1986
    http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/reviews/hhnt-induction/∞






    my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read." -- Abraham Lincoln

    -- G.K. Chesterton
    and the answer was "By never being afraid or ashamed to ask questions as to anything of which I was ignorant."
    -- John Abbott







    -- Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton, 2001-02-07, possibly quoting someone else




    It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
    -- Benjamin Disraeli, 1874





    unschooling
    ...
    John Holt (How Children Learn, Learning all the Time, etc.),
    John Gatto (Dumbing us Down),
    Sheldon Richmond (Separating School and State),
    Mary Griffith (The Unschooling Handbook), and others have written books about this.
    </q>
    --
    recc. Connie Stillwell 2003-04-28







    http://clublet.com/c/c/why?MakePovertyHistory∞

    I do not know a better argument for an optimistic view of mankind,
    no better proof of their indestructible love for truth and decency,
    of their originality and stubbornness and health,
    than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them."
    - Karl R. Popper



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