Pondering Paleontology: Process & Piaget
the science of INFERRING
- where all its restorations are tentative
one of the silliest things we do is teach dinosaurs in the primary grades.
Cute student faces mask their pre-operational minds
which cannot comprehend time; distance; bio-diversity; life;
classification; death and extinction.
Still, we "teach dinosaurs."
In addition to teaching falsehoods, there is very little "science"
involved in this "unit." It often degenerates into "whole science"
-- which might be defined as a whole lot of reading -- another
skill that Elkind says boggles the young, unprepared minds.
Where are the opportunities to process information ?
- observing
- inferring
- measuring
-
- hypothesizing
- making models
- collecting data
-
- estimating
- classifying
- defining operationally
-
- making a graph
- predicting
- controlling variables
-
- communicating
- interpreting data: read a - graph / chart / diagram
This 'module' allows students to make mental leaps called
inferences -- a reasonable guess to explain observed events.
An inference is derived from -
- an observation +
- past experience with such phenomena +
- perhaps, some prejudice.
Children are still too young to understand & perform formal
operational logic but this mental construct can be experienced
on the heels of an inference. The hallmark of science is a
thinking sequence that goes: "if - then - therefore."
4/25t/95 - 6/22s/96