[senco-forum] Re: How many rules?

Well said Mary, The problem with discovery learniing which is what I

I don't agree at all I'm afraid. I think babies emerge from the womb as very
proficient learners. They watch and listen to everything around them and
they practise their movements until they get control of their limbs. As soon
as they can they are putting everything in their mouths to see what it
tastes and smells like. They drop everything to see what happens. They try
out sounds and gestures to communicate. They learn at an absolutely
astonishing pace, and as soon as they can they are exploring every inch of
their environment.

Our job as teachers is to provide for them the experiences they need to
learn the stuff that will be most useful to them in life's journey. That
requires selection and careful planning on our part, and the willingness to
stimulate them enough to keep their natural inquisitiveness alive and not
kill it stone dead with boredom!

I agree that some information is taught and some is learned but the only
part that matters to the student is what is learned. So we really should try
to make sure that it will be useful to them!

That's what I think, anyway!
Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Rupp [mailto:tgrupp at ntlworld.com] 
Sent: 09 September 2007 02:41
To: Philip MacMillan; Mary Kelly; 'Maggie Downie'; 'Biff Crabbe'; 'Amanda';
'Phil'; senco forum
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?

"If nothing is taught and is
instead learned why do we pay teachers and why do we have schools?"

I fear that you have missed the point. We teachers teach the children how to

learn, something that they will not learn without being taught.

It is a balancing act. Some information is taught and some is learned. As 
children become more and more independent in their learning then the amount 
of teaching lessens. For some the balance needs to be be different and their

needs in class are also different.

If we didn't teach the children how to become independent learners then the 
universities would be full of students who cannot punctuate a sentence 
correctly, cannot spell accurately and haven't learned the skills necessary 
to make notes and draw their own conclusions. What an unhappy world we would

live in if that were the case!

Tim Rupp.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Philip MacMillan" <P.Macmillan at exeter.ac.uk>
To: "Mary Kelly" <mary.kelly4 at ntlworld.com>; "'Tim Rupp'" 
<tgrupp at ntlworld.com>; "'Maggie Downie'" <maizie2004 at yahoo.co.uk>; "'Biff 
Crabbe'" <ba at biffc.vispa.com>; "'Amanda'" <amandavh at btinternet.com>; 
"'Phil'" <pmacken1 at bigpond.net.au>; "senco forum" 
<senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?

> Well said Mary,  The problem with discovery learniing which is what I 
> think
> the others are promulgating means that the wheel is forever being re
> invented, a great waste of time and thought.  If nothing is taught and is
> instead learned why do we pay teachers and why do we have schools?   No
> matter how you work it out 2 + 2 = 4 as long as we agree on the quantities
> and their referents.   Otherwise (and I think it is the case certainly in
> education) it is that words are what we mean them to be, all a bit Alice 
> in
> Wonderland).   At the risk of being thought a nag, when are we going to
> start thinking in a rational and rigorous way about what we do?  If the
> rules cover 80% of words then it will be time efficient to teach  them
> rather than hope that they are picked up osmotically simply through use -
> another whole language nonsense and there is plenty more where that came
> from.
>
> Philip EP
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mary Kelly" <mary.kelly4 at ntlworld.com>
> To: "'Tim Rupp'" <tgrupp at ntlworld.com>; "'Maggie Downie'"
> <maizie2004 at yahoo.co.uk>; "'Biff Crabbe'" <ba at biffc.vispa.com>; "'Philip
> MacMillan'" <P.Macmillan at exeter.ac.uk>; "'Amanda'"
> <amandavh at btinternet.com>; "'Phil'" <pmacken1 at bigpond.net.au>;
> <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 10:41 PM
> Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?
>
>
>> But that's not quite what I meant. We teach that the digit 1 represents
>> one
>> of anything, 2 represents two of anything and so on. We teach that the
>> value
>> of the digits changes according to its position (i.e. place value). Why
>> should we only teach what 26 letters of the alphabet represent, and not
>> the
>> digraphs, trigraphs and controlled vowels? Why leave children to work it
>> out
>> for themselves when it can be brought to their attention (like the Ruth
>> Miskin scheme does so successfully)? If we bring it to their attention
>> then
>> even the children with relatively poor phonemic awareness stand a chance
>> of
>> "getting" the alphabetic code.
>> Of course we can encourage children to find their own methods of
>> calculating
>> in maths (just like we encourage them to express their individuality in
>> writing), but we can't let them invent their own values for the digits in
>> a
>> number, can we? (Well, not unless we're trying to teach octal or 
>> something
>> at least).
>> But I haven't read every single email on this thread so perhaps I'm
>> missing
>> the point?
>> Mary
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Tim Rupp [mailto:tgrupp at ntlworld.com]
>> Sent: 06 September 2007 05:01
>> To: Mary Kelly; 'Maggie Downie'; 'Biff Crabbe'; 'Philip MacMillan';
>> 'Amanda'; 'Phil'; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
>> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?
>>
>> The same argument applies. Some children can be given the basics and work
>> out the rest for themselves. Others need more support to find their own
>> route.
>>
>> With Numeracy, like literacy, we aren't here to say this is the way it
>> should be. We are here to help the children to become independent
>> mathematicians who can solve the problems on their own and in their own
>> way.
>>
>> Yes, we do show them the best methods. Yes, there are times when there is
>> only one way, but it is all about understanding and application, and that
>> is
>>
>> not taught, it is learned.
>>
>> Tim Rupp
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Mary Kelly" <mary.kelly4 at ntlworld.com>
>> To: "'Maggie Downie'" <maizie2004 at yahoo.co.uk>; "'Biff Crabbe'"
>> <ba at biffc.vispa.com>; "'Philip MacMillan'" <P.Macmillan at exeter.ac.uk>;
>> "'Amanda'" <amandavh at btinternet.com>; "'Phil'" <pmacken1 at bigpond.net.au>;
>> <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 2:57 PM
>> Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?
>>
>>
>>> Would anyone even entertain the idea of teaching numeracy without
>>> teaching
>>> what the numbers represent? So why do we continue to debate whether or
>>> not
>>> we should teach what the letters and letter groups represent?
>>> Mary
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
>>> [mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Maggie
>>> Downie
>>> Sent: 04 September 2007 22:41
>>> To: Biff Crabbe; Philip MacMillan; Amanda; Phil;
>>> senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
>>> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Re: How many rules?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Biff Crabbe <ba at biffc.vispa.com> wrote: Not a piece of research 
>>> published
>>> in
>>> a learned journal, but personally I'd
>>> recommend Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue' as an excellent and eminently
>>> readable book about the English language.  Populist rubbish in some
>>> circles
>>> I'm sure.
>>>
>>> It's apparently encouraging that the number of 'rules' in English is
>>> finite,
>>> albeit with more exceptions to rules than is comfortable.  But if you're
>>> having to learn how to read and spell via those rules, you're probably
>>> not
>>> showing promise of being a 'natural'.
>>>
>>> I'm not quite following your reasoning here, Biff.  How can one learn to
>>> read and write *without* being taught how reading and writing 'work'
>>> (i.e,
>>> the 'rules', if you insist on being rule bound)?  Reading is not a
>>> 'natural'
>>> process, therefore no-one can be 'a natural' at it...
>>>
>>> Surely, those who are slower to learn have a far better chance of
>>> learning
>>> 180ish 'correspondences', and how to apply them to decode & blend words,
>>> than they do of learning 250,000 words as discrete entities?
>>>
>>>
>>> Those people lucky enough to just
>>> learn to read and spell fluently without particular difficulty very 
>>> often
>>> can't articulate the rules, or even recognise that there is a rule
>>> governing
>>> something that they know how to do (as Jean has attested).
>>>
>>> So while we might be comforted by the finite number of rules to be
>>> learned,
>>> we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that those who need to learn in this
>>> way
>>> are already at a comparative disadvantage.  And it's certainly not the
>>> most
>>> efficient way to grasp literacy.
>>>
>>> So, what is the most efficient way to 'grasp literacy'?
>>>
>>> Maggie
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------
>>> Yahoo! Answers - Get better answers from someone who knows. Tryit now.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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