Chapter 18, Sense and Knowledge
Speculation
Consciousness and thought appears in infancy or childhood. There they may
be initially taken for granted or not explicitly noticed. Only later are
they questioned, if they are questioned at all. Vagueness of memory may
hide the days when consciousness and thought began. A few speculative
remarks follow. Despite being written in the third person, the remarks
represent this author's image of his own consciousness, thought and
ability to know.
An infant is born. His or her senses of touch, sight, sound, heat, smell
and taste meet a new environment. Coordination comes slowly. As the
infant moves, crawls and then walks, his or her mind (presumably) becomes
aware of a difference between two parts of the surroundings. First,
external to the mind is a body. This body is sensitive to indigestion and
other discomforts. Some maintenance is required. Second, external to the
body is an environment of objects, active, inactive and/or reactive. Here
both the body and the environment external to it impinge on and react
with the mind of the infant child. The boundaries of this body, the skin,
especially on the fingers, along with the ears and the eyes provide
sensations of the environment beyond the body. During exploration, the
child may find that some caution is required, say to avoid repetition of
painful experiences due to hot, cold, sharp or hard surfaces. Interaction
with the environment brings sensations, sometimes pleasurable and
sometimes not.
The child learns
In moving objects from here to there, in learning to get dressed and to
eat, and in learning to talk, the child may come to accept the
environment. Beyond this, the child may dream. The dreams of the child
are perhaps echoes of recent experiences or sensations, the suggestions
of others, or both. Dreams may be directed or not in the child's
imagination where pleasant thoughts or fears may govern. (Directed dreams
and images are a visual form of thought.)
In growing, the child may learn the difference between mental
experiences, here dreams, and the ongoing physical experiences of the
body and its five senses. The latter need to be given priority.
Different times and cultures may favor a different emphasis. The
undirected dreams or images may then be suppressed or discounted. That
is, the child accepts the priority of the five external senses, the
environment they represent, and does not remain or withdraw fully into
the echo or memories of past experiences. Loss of control here may appear
as madness or as a withdrawal from the world given by the physical
senses.
The words of others are external to the child. Words provide information
and instructions. When a noise is heard, a child will identify its
source. The source is often external. But as the child learns to speak,
the source is not external. That is, when a word is spoken, it echoes in
the ears and therefore the mind of the talker.
Then in learning to read or speak silently, the external spoken word is
internalized. [ 1 ] In this, the child finds an inner mind to explore.
Silent words echo without an audible use of the vocal chords, if they are
used at all. They are heard in the mind. The infant or child needs to
learn to recognize this silent voice as his or her own, a voice that may
remain one and not be divided.
[1] In Roman days, loss of voice meant the loss of the ability to read
aloud and hence the loss of the ability to read.
Thought appears to involve the formation of images in the mind, the
formation of words on the lips or in the mind, and the formation or the
recall of sensation fragments from the physical senses of sight, sound,
touch and heat, taste and smell. When awake, this thought should or may
remain linked to everyday reality, the sometimes rude external
environment.
The thoughts of a person are not usually isolated. Interaction with the
environment, the feeling that it is too hot here; body needs such as
hunger; the voices/actions of others intervene and sometimes direct
thoughts and actions. The words of others in particular pass on ideas and
stories. Knowledge itself may be a reflection or a consequence of the
ability to describe, to tell, understand and remember stories. As the
infant child grows, stories as told by elders (or as written in books)
transfer knowledge or pass on the culture and knowledge of a community.
Organized or not, it is food for thought. When deliberately organized, as
in education, this transfer may result in the accumulation of skills and
techniques. In particular the deliberate description of rules and
patterns, and the theories that they form, extends the ability to follow
stories and act upon their content, their plots and the characters that
exist within them.
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Teachers & Tutors: Site pages offer better or best practices for providing skills -
simpler than expected & comprehensive but for exercises. For your charges, your duty is to study them alone or in
groups and develop skill building exercises & activities to share. Start now. The effort here is the best I can do.
Others are welcome to refine or exceed it. Please do.
Secondary
Mathematics for Ages 11+, A Practical Approach for home-tutoring or -schooling, or for schools & colleges
with local curriculum control. Study how to include site content - its skill development how-TOs and innovations
into present or future lesson plans - some reading required.
Road
Safety Messages and Questions: When and why should you face
traffic when walking along a road or cycle path? Is it a good
idea to hang limbs outside of cars etc? What gives more
protection in a crash: a car, motorbike or bicycle?
See too, the BBC-Belgium story Texting and
Driving - texting & the impossible test - the article links to a gruesome utube video on the subject
The Logic of Injustice:
How Texas sent
an innocent man to his death - The wrong Carlos. Some judgments are irreversible. Procescution: Where and when prosectors play to win rather than for
justice, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt goes unrespected due to prosecutors who putting winning
first, those innocence before the law may be convicted. Some procescutors offices in continuing to accuse after a pardon
due to reasonable doubt or innocent being shown, may sucessfully oppose compensaton for false convictions
by asserting a pardon individual is still under suspicion. Then the pardoned individual or the latter's estate
is not compensation for years or decade
of improper or false imprisonment, or for execution. Site chapters on Logic
and some in Pattern
Based Reason may slowly lead to greater precision in reading, applying and
writing laws.
May 2012, Composition Starting:
Pre-School and Primary Mathematics - Quantitative Skills, An
Intellectual View, Feedback Welcome:
The 8 Most Popular Site Inlinks
Parent Center: Help your child or teen
learn:
Parent-friendly
Work Booklets for ages 3+ to 13 Use these or others to check
or build skills. Other booklets are available but these booklets
allow parents unsure of themselves in mathematics to help their
children. The selection acquired in Canada is published in the
USA. So it has a US orientation. In retrospect, the selection
shows parents what to check with the booklets or by other ways,
the choice is theirs. But in retrospect, the selection does not
cover integral and fractions liquid weights and measures - ask
the publishers to correct that! For ages 9 to 12 say, parents may
compensate by showing boys and girls how to use weights or mass,
and further measures in food preparation. Beyond that children
may be shown how to measure and calculate angles, lengths and
areas [proportional amounts too] directly or by using maps and
plans drawns to scale. Learning how to gather and measure all the
ingredients, pots and pans for a dish or a meal, along with
cleaning up sets the stage for like activities or experiments in
science courses, and in developing organizational skills,
gives boys and girls a head start. Good luck. At the other
extreme, more comprehensive than light, if your motto is
McCainian: drill, drill, drill then Toronto
mathematician and actor John Mighton's jump math organization has jump math
workbooks for at least grades 3 to 8 for at-home and in-school
use - training sessions for teachers available. Jump math has
been expanding to cover older students. Jump Math Samples: plus
Fractions for
Grades 3-4 & Grades 5-6 [Read] Free Resources grades 1 to 8
[unread - likely to be good]. and
Mathematics
Skills For Ages 3 to 14 - technical!
Skills with take
home value - A few ideas
Basic skills include
time-date-calendar Matters; money matters; map, plan and
scale diagram matters;counting, measuring and figuring;
decision making with logic and likelyhood; being careful and
being aware of the domino effect of mistakes; reading and
writing with precision.
Is your child able to add, subtract and multiply amounts
of money, work with fractions, work with clocks and calendars,
work with maps and plans, and measure length, weight-mass and
volume? Schools may promote your son or daughter without
providing basic skills in reading, writing and
arithmetic.
Arithmetic
and Number Theory Skills
Algebra
Starter Lessons
Geometry
- maps plans trigonometry vectors
More
Algebra
70
Calculus Starter Lessons
Calculus Lessons Elsewhere:
-
How to Ace Calculus: Street Wise Guide - Mostly
Text.
-
Flash
Video for Calculus Phobics
They cover basic topics in ways likely to complement your
notes, your textbooks and site material. When Goldilocks
trespassed in the house of the three bears, she found three bowls
of porridge, two not to her liking, and one just right. Different
bears have different tastes. As invited guest here and elsewhere,
if one or more explanations is not to liking, try another. It may
be better or just right.
Unsolicited Advice
Learning to do and high marks if it comes to easy is often
deceptive - light rather than deep. For that reason, students
with learning difficulties determined not to let it get in their
way may go deeper and farther than those with none. High marks,
if the come easy, may be deceptive - provide a too light and not
a deep mastery. That could have been your problem in secondary
school, one that leads to comprehension shock or difficulties in
calculus and more generally in the first year of college. Bon
Appetite.
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