Cave Man Didn't Have Classrooms
Roger Schank, The Pulse, October 3, 2007.

This article is mostly just entertaining speculation about the way cave man children were taught. But the second-last paragraph really bothers me. "The cave man was probably not conscious," writes Schank, making a sudden right turn. "If we teach to the conscious, if we say how to do something, or worse teach the theory of how something works, rather than show how to do something, we lose the student because his mind does not work that way. If experience is separated from knowledge, if what we teach is not about doing at all, then we teaching to the conscious." This can't be right. Experience is conscious, isn't it? 'Conscious learning' is reflectively aware learning, and is a good thing. I can see the point, that we shouldn't merely use language, that we shouldn't just 'tell' people things. But consciousness is not language, and 'telling' isn't 'teaching to the conscious'.

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Comments

Re: Cave Man Didn'T Have Classrooms

, October 4, 2007

You are too generous. Schank's "entertaining speculation" is mostly specious nonsense intended to prepare the ground for the quote that (rightly) offended you. In fact research has shown that students taught mathematical procedures exhibit less useful retention of problem solving capacity than those taught concepts, and (leaving aside the fact that there probably isn't anything that educational research hasn't 'shown' at one time or another) it makes good sense to expect that a practitioner of anything who understands the context will be more effective than one who does not. I believe that as good a case could be made for the evolution of a thirst for understanding as for mere mimicry and have laid out an alternative version of Schank's post on my own blog at http://qpr.ca/blog/?p=397 [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Cave Man Didn't Have Classrooms

Anymouse, October 4, 2007

I don't see the point. First, we start with a supposition that we can neither prove nor disprove: that caveman is not conscious. Then we build onto that a whole lot of other suppostion about how he learned, which again (even supposing the underlying supposition is true), we can neither prove nor disprove. At the end of all that supposition built on supposition, how have we moved forward? What have *we* learned?

Karyn Romeis [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: Cave Man Didn't Have Classrooms

, October 4, 2007

Allow me to critique some of Schank's article in greater detail:

"... we were evolved to live off the land without excessive alteration to what we find there, ..."

Wrong. Evolution brought forth a creature than can and always has exploited its environment to the best of its ability.

"It seems a silly question to ask, ... Did cave men give and listen to lectures?" and "Is it reasonable to assume that a cave man was in the habit of sitting quietly and listening to someone who was trying to teach him to know something?"

Yes; oral tradition is a part of every pre-literate society. Homer learned (and embellished) his stories by listening and repeating. Even as late as the 1940s, there were men in Bosnia who could recite a dozen epic poems the size of the Iliad, all learned at the feet of another man. Perhaps we have become so culturally ignorant individually precisely because we now depend upon "stored" community knowledge rather than our own.

" ... cave men taught their children by example."

Of course; that, too. But of course we have formalized this in many ways, with teachers instead of tribal elders.

"in all societies until very recently, ... Knowing was not valued. Doing was seriously valued."

First, to do you must know how to do! Second, oral history is pure knowing, not doing. Observing and responding to seasonal and weather changes requires knowing.

"... the cave man's mind was never prepared for, or concerned with, knowing. There was no test."

See above. And "the test" was survival in nature and within the group.

"The winner was the person who brought down the elk or buffalo. He didn't have to know how to do it, at least not consciously. He had to be able to do it."

Then he sat around the camp fire and described what he did in the utmost detail, to the satisfaction and enlightenment of his peers. (As the author then admits in the nest paragraph.)

"But cave men did know F=MA. Cave men had to know a great deal of physics in order to effectively use a spear or any other weapon."

Define "know"! The genuine "knowledge" of F=MA revolutionized thinking. And it can be learned from a book or from a lecture, without "doing".

"The cave man was probably not conscious."

Even the other great apes are conscious.

" ... we have plenty of intellectuals and the ability to train more. Teaching people to work together, reason about new situations, achieve their goals, just as cave men did, is what education should be about."

So, in the end, is this another anti-intellectual statement? But enough. [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

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