I was an educator at a small-moderate sized 4-year college, teaching various sciences with 85% of students I dealt with being non-science majors, a significant number being from the school of business ("Why do we have to take a science course when science majors don't have to take a business course?"). I could not count how many students told me that: 'I'm just not good in science;" or "I just don't understand science." I eventually came to believe there was truth in such statements, although much of the science I taught was a matter of learning basic facts and vocabulary (here is a term: what does it mean? here is an idea: what term is used for it?*). However, I used to describe teaching science to the non-science majors this way: It's like standing in a thick fog bank and attempting to clear an opening to let the sun shine through by pushing back with your hands.
*Faculty from other disciplines, as well as deans, used to deride learning vocabulary as "just memorizing" rather than "teaching concepts." I eventually told them to consider this: You are the first person to go among the isolated XXX people deep in the Amazon and you're charged with teaching them baseball. They have no vocabulary for it, no word for: ball, bat, throw, catch, out, base, diamond, strike, fielder, grounder, fly ball, hit, single, home run, slide, bunt, foul ball, etc. etc. Furthermore, they have no concept of a "game," or organizing into "teams," or having two groups or people do something where there's competition that isn't warfare. Teach them baseball WITHOUT asking them to learn any vocabulary - no new words/terms/descriptions. Then four months later, give them a WRITTEN TEST to see if they have learned and now do understand the game. How would you write a question? What could you expect as an answer? Enormous amounts of basic science is locked up in language. If you know the word, you know the idea. Words are the hooks on which we hang enormous amounts of knowledge. For a biologist the word "cell" opens libraries full of information in their head, just as for a baseball fan there are strategies, complexities, personalities, controversies, and a vast amount of history attached to the word "pitch."
---------- Post added 01-15-15 at 11:48 AM ----------
Originally posted by sherrvonne This is what I do with the photos I take. I was partially finished with this pastel when I took that photo. However much I like pastel, I am even more obsessed with cameras, that is Pentax cameras.
That's really quite pretty. My artistic efforts, without a camera, would more resemble what you must clean from your fingers.
Last edited by WPRESTO; 01-15-2015 at 10:51 AM.