Grammar comes to students as an abstract whole
"The Reed-Kellogg diagram is a tool of the classroom and of the textbooks that codify the rules for its production. But grammar textbooks share a problem similar to the one Thomas Kuhn noted for science textbooks: they tend to efface the history of their subject. Indeed, grammar textbooks are far more ahistorical that science textbooks. The average science textbook will contain some history, however Whiggish. There will be at least a cursory mention of the scientists who formulated the theories under discussion, some suggestion that scientific knowledge is subject to change and accretion. Grammar, however, comes to students as an abstract whole. The sources from which the textbook authors derived their accounts normally go unacknowledged. There is no sense of grammar as a theory—or, more precisely, a constellation of competing theories—with its own intellectual history."
(Karl Hagen, 17 October 2015)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ken Robinson: human ability and talent is highly diverse
"Yes you know there's this view that only special people are creative and it's not me. It's not it's not anybody I really know. It's a very isolated sort of genius you know to be really creative. And you know people doubt their own strengths and their own capacities. So I meet all kind of people who don't really get much fulfilment from the work they do. You know they just get through it and wait for the weekend. But I also meet people who love what they do. And couldn't imagine doing anything else. You know if you set and don't this anymore they wouldn't' know what you were talking about because this is who they are. You know I mean like I don't know what else I would do. They are so to speak in their element. And so the book is about that. It's about the journeys people took to discover their own talents and what difference it made in their lives. And I talk to all kinds of people. It's not just interviews. But the book is seasoned as you know with interviews with people in science in business in the arts in sports in technology all kinds of different fields and what's interesting to me is of course it's different for everybody and this is really a key point you know that human ability and talent is highly diverse. You know what turns somebody on might totally turn somebody else off. What excites some propel does not excite other people and I know when I am signing the book these days I always ask people what they do. And when they tell me I ask them if they like it. And I always think it's great when people say I love it. Because you just never [inaudible].'"
(Ken Robinson, Conversations from Penn State)
Fig.1 Conversations from Penn State Episode 207: Sir Ken Robinson, Uploaded by WPSU TV/FM/Online on 6 Nov 2010, YouTube.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
