> At 10:17 AM 12/20/96 -0600, zaimoni@ksu.edu wrote:
>
> snip...
>
> >This is plausible. There is reasonably solid evidence that U.S.
> >Kindergarten actively instructs students to act unintelligent, and that
> >this behavior is *difficult* to unlearn.
>
> I thought kindergarten teaches kids how to 1) sit still; 2) listen
> while an adult speaks to a _group_ of children; 3) play (relatively)
> nicely with other children; 4) sing and do simple artwork; 5) perhaps
> learn to read (if not known yet). (This seems to be what happened
> with my children, at least.)
>
> What about kindergarten "instructs students to act unintelligent"?
> Is it a plan or ?bad? teachers? Or?
>
> ken
Items 1..5 are also correct; I would say 1, 2, 3, and 5 are essential in
any literate culture. I suspect it's an unintended side-effect that is
ill-known [I got it from a senior in education who had been sifting
abstracts for one of his papers....] of the usual plans. ?Bad?
teachers would aggravate this side-effect.
The ability to laterally think plummets markedly after 2 semesters of
exposure, *without* a concurrent increase in linear/conventional thinking
ability. While it is a good idea to become used to linear thinking as a
problem-solving metaphor, axing the other metaphor cannot be neglected as
a factor in the absence of *obvious* geniuses born after 1920 or so.
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/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
/
/ Kenneth Boyd
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