Agenda for Today: Please Print Out

[kellogg]

Everybody!

First of all, a warm winter welcome to class. I hope you all enjoyed your last weekend without homework ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ....

Here's the "agenda" I want to talk about tonight. As you can see, it's about names. Not just my name and your name, but about how the child's model of language is at first a set of names, and the child's model of English is a set of English names for Korean meanings.

For example, I've got the 과학 교과서 for fifth graders on my desk. There's a chapter on MIRRORS and LENSES, things that have names. The chapter is very good at naming things: we learn about convex lenses and concave lenses. The chapter is also good at naming processes: we learn about "reflection" and "refraction". But the chapter is NOT so good at explaining things. We don't really learn WHY, for example, things look big in a concave mirror and through a concave lens, but small in a convex mirror and through a convex lens.

Spinoza said that there are really three kinds of questions about any object:

a) EXISTENTIAL. Does this thing really exist? Is it singular or plural? Is it a material object or an abstract idea?

b) ESSENTIAL. What kind of thing is it? How is it similar to other things? How is it different?

c) EXPLANATORY. Why is it like this? How do we know this? Why do we think this?

Now you can see that our science lesson is mostly concerned with a) and b). We don't learn, for example, why Aristotle thought that the eye emits light, and how we know that he was wrong. Yet it might be cool to teach this! (the comic book "X-Men" has two characters, Dazzler and Cyclops, who can shoot light beams out of their eyes!) And Aristotle's theory doesn't explain--why we can't see in the dark.

So I think we can say that our science lesson is mostly concerned with NAMING and not with EXPLAINING. That's okay. Kids need to know names. But they need to know a lot more too, and that's what we need to talk about tonight..

Every week I will try to put it up as early as possible, so you can print it out and read it. 

But the agenda is a little like fresh bread; it's best when its freshest. So some weeks I get data a little late, and then the agenda is a little late. That means that:

a) You may have to print it out and read it  on the subway on the way to class.

b) You may have to print it out and read it AFTER class.

Now, every week our agenda will give you some idea of what the class is SUPPOSED to be about. But a good class is a little like a good conversation: it has surprises. So sometimes it may end up being about something else, and that's another good reason for having the agenda HERE.

Week 1.doc

dk