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#1
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Best OS So Far
"Wolf K" wrote
| The mistake is to think "critical thinking" is a some kind of generic | skill. It isn't. Neither is writing. You can teach people how to write a | history paper, and/or an English essay, and/or a science paper, etc, and | the thinking that goes along with each. You can't teach any skill in the | abstract. Maybe critical thinking isn't the best term to use. Some basic skills can be taught, surely. Writing can be taught as a mode of expression. Vocabulary. Parts of speech. Sentence structure. The specific techniques for writing a history paper or science paper would be separate from the ability to express ideas clearly, in full sentences. Isn't that literacy, after all? Going further, I don't see why students can't also be acclimated to gathering their thoughts. But that's not what's being asked of them. They're asked to imitate the appearance of intelligence. To accord with requirements. To write to the test. So that's what they do. (Then, presumably, Microsoft hires them to write highfalutin nonsense like, "Leveraging next-gen technologies to solutionize problems across the enterprise will be the principal applicational transaction of our new bleeding-edge tool, Success Enhancing Support and Fulfillment Framework, or SESFF.") I wouldn't say that person has critical thinking ability. They don't know they're writing nonsense. They just mimic a style of stringing together fashionable trigger words. I guess what I'm thinking of, which seems to be missing, is intelligent attention, or capable reflection. I'm not a teacher, but I suspect that could be taught by encouraging students to figure things out for themselves. It's my impression that higher education used to be exactly that. Teaching people to think so that they could go on to be leaders, rather than just selling them social connections and terminology so that they could go on to make 6 figures as cogs in the machinery. |
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Best OS So Far
On 1/21/2017 6:31 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Wolf K" wrote | The mistake is to think "critical thinking" is a some kind of generic | skill. It isn't. Neither is writing. You can teach people how to write a | history paper, and/or an English essay, and/or a science paper, etc, and | the thinking that goes along with each. You can't teach any skill in the | abstract. Maybe critical thinking isn't the best term to use. Some basic skills can be taught, surely. Writing can be taught as a mode of expression. Vocabulary. Parts of speech. Sentence structure. The specific techniques for writing a history paper or science paper would be separate from the ability to express ideas clearly, in full sentences. Isn't that literacy, after all? Going further, I don't see why students can't also be acclimated to gathering their thoughts. But that's not what's being asked of them. They're asked to imitate the appearance of intelligence. To accord with requirements. To write to the test. So that's what they do. (Then, presumably, Microsoft hires them to write highfalutin nonsense like, "Leveraging next-gen technologies to solutionize problems across the enterprise will be the principal applicational transaction of our new bleeding-edge tool, Success Enhancing Support and Fulfillment Framework, or SESFF.") I wouldn't say that person has critical thinking ability. They don't know they're writing nonsense. They just mimic a style of stringing together fashionable trigger words. I guess what I'm thinking of, which seems to be missing, is intelligent attention, or capable reflection. I'm not a teacher, but I suspect that could be taught by encouraging students to figure things out for themselves. It's my impression that higher education used to be exactly that. Teaching people to think so that they could go on to be leaders, rather than just selling them social connections and terminology so that they could go on to make 6 figures as cogs in the machinery. YES! I spent a lot of years selecting and managing engineers. I've known many very smart engineers with specific skills. I've known very few who have what you called intelligent attention. You can teach an engineer HOW to bias a transistor. It's much more difficult to teach them to imagine that a transistor has useful characteristics outside the mainstream of providing gain. 40 years ago, I suggested building a switching power supply based on a Johnson counter. Engineers told me I was crazy, but it worked first time. You can teach 'em to HOW simulate a circuit. It's much more difficult to teach them to decide WHAT to simulate. Most any endeavor can be modeled as a decision tree. Most people pick a branch and head up the tree. They're so invested in their chosen branch that they don't even consider the possibility that they might be better off on a different branch. I've been unsuccessful teaching an engineer to: think/extrapolate beyond his experience put himself into the mindset of the user of the product see the big picture I never had any kids, so I can't access early life pliability, but by the time they get to the workforce, they either have it or they don't. They seem to understand the concept, they're just unable to embrace it. Since the same thing happens with management, people who do have the skills are "troublemakers" and are suppressed. The deck is stacked in favor of people who tell you what you want to hear. People actively resist concepts that they didn't conceive or come from outside their focus area. I used to crash meetings of other design teams. The conversation went something like: If you implemented this capability, you'd solve these user problems and sell more stuff. You're an idiot, it's not in the spec. Well, what if you...? Maybe, but we can't do that. Ok, here's one way to do that... Hmmm, but you're still an idiot. Two years later, I get a copy of the patent with me named as co-inventor. Most teams I invaded were not that generous. |
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Best OS So Far
In message , mike
writes: [] YES! [] I've been unsuccessful teaching an engineer to: think/extrapolate beyond his experience put himself into the mindset of the user of the product see the big picture Or the maintainer of the product. I work in the tail-end department - R&S, which is nominally "readiness and sustainment" (!), but everyone knows is really repairs and spares. Since it's avionics, this involves equipment often decades old - people, especially military, expect aircraft to last (and be supported) for a LONG time. Lots of the kit I work on was clearly _not_ designed by someone who put themselves into the mindset of the maintainer: it can take half an hour's dismantling (and that's with practice) to get at something trivial, probably involving the destruction and thus replacement of some parts - which a little more thought at the design stage could have made so much easier. (To remain vaguely on-topic: this also applies to the software, in some ways - both that in the product, and that in the test equipment. Though the chances of _changing_ either of those are remote anyway, the source code having been lost, and/or the compilers necessary being obsolete.) [] Since the same thing happens with management, people who do have the skills are "troublemakers" and are suppressed. BIG grin and +1! [] If you implemented this capability, you'd solve these user problems and sell more stuff. You're an idiot, it's not in the spec. [] You're preaching to the choir here! I have many suggestions in our company's suggestion scheme (jokingly called "Empower" - as if!), most of which were made not to get kudos but actually to improve things and make life easier for others, but which have been set aside because implementing them would be too much effort, as a one-off exercise, for someone (probably not connected with those it would help). -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." - William James |
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Best OS So Far
In message , Wolf K
writes: On 2017-01-21 17:55, mike wrote: [...] I've been unsuccessful teaching an engineer to: think/extrapolate beyond his experience put himself into the mindset of the user of the product see the big picture [...] I started out to be an engineer. Switched for several reasons, none of which had to do with my classmates, who pretty good guys. Except they really didn't get poetry. Have a good day, Ah, the old arts/sciences divide. I've actually met more scientists, and engineers, with a smattering (sometimes quite extensive) knowledge of, and interest in, the arts (music, literature, language, ...), than vice versa. This is not _entirely_ the fault of the individuals - the education system has some considerable responsibility too. And society in general (perhaps more in UK than USA), that considers us "trade", not "a higher calling". I think a lot more people would be _interested_ in how things work (including software) if they weren't afraid of looking nerdy, and similar words/attitudes. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." - William James |
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Best OS So Far
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
| I started out to be an engineer. Switched for several reasons, none of | which had to do with my classmates, who pretty good guys. Except they | really didn't get poetry. | Ah, the old arts/sciences divide. I've actually met more scientists, and | engineers, with a smattering (sometimes quite extensive) knowledge of, | and interest in, the arts (music, literature, language, ...), than vice | versa. This is not _entirely_ the fault of the individuals - the | education system has some considerable responsibility too. I guess that's the nature vs nurture question. I can certainly see aptitude and personal affinity as a factor. Yet people can also learn. I got into web design because I have an affinity for graphics. I got into programming because I was hooked by the problem-solving-with-linear- thinking mode. I've noticed that my thinking actually becomes less poetic, less creative and layered, when I do a lot of programming, which is a world of mechanics. I'm neither an exceptional artist nor an exceptional programmer. But I am a good generalist who can code the software, design the UI, and write the help file. I think those are different modes and that people have different propensities. Probably I could be taught to dance and sing, but that would take a great deal of effort on my part, going against my own tendencies, and it would take a patient teacher. There would need to be a good reason for both of us to make the effort. Programming, by contrast, was more like a fever. I couldn't help myself learning it. So I guess that's the intersection of nature and nurture. The nurturing usually takes better when nature supports it. But I still think there's also another category of "learning to think", or the capacity for reflection, which doesn't necessarily require intellect, artistic bent, or any other propensity. A simple example: The geek and the artist have lunch together and both have a fast-food hamburger, a soda and a candy bar. Why would they eat such poor quality food? Because they're addicted to the flavors and just never thought to pay attention to their diets. It's "not their thing". Then both take an antacid and go home, take a sleeping pill, and go to bed. In the morning they both take a happy pill (perhaps a neurotransmitter-reuptake inhibitor), along with ibuprofen for their sore back, and head off to work. The geek drives because he hates all those people on the bus. The artist takes the bus because his car has been out of commission for 3 months as he waffles about getting the muffler fixed.... .... Those are typical scenarios. People who might be regarded as brilliant and yet lack the basic capacity to live their lives properly in numerous areas because they don't actually reflect on, or pay attention to, anything. They simply move from one fascination to the next. And some of their fascinations just happen to produce good software or a good painting. (Both geeks and artists are often proud to be childish and unsocialized, as though it proves their brilliance.) Even that geek may not notice that a DOC is not the same as a DOCX. That geek may actually use MS Word or Libre Office without ever knowing where his docs are. (I know a router programmer who works in C but seems to have never emtied his Recycle Bin. He's oblivious to computer expertise on the user level.) | And society | in general (perhaps more in UK than USA), that considers us "trade", not | "a higher calling". I think the software world has changed things. An engineer used to be someone with an advanced degree who designed bridges, or electrical components, or car engines. They were structural engineers, or electrical engineers, or mechanical engineers. These days an engineer is like a "consultant" or an administrative assistant. It's likely to be a valorizing euphemism for a less skilled job. Often the "engineer" is just a college student who does grunt work on a website. Often their boss encourages the title to keep the employee happy with low pay. Probably the vast majority of engineers in the software world do not have engineering degrees. It's been an interesting process in the past decade or two, as tech people try to establish status. Software writers have been referred to as authors, developers, architects, builders, and now engineers. They've hopped around to every position in the building trades, finally stopping at the one that requires the most official credentials. |
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Best OS So Far
In message , Wolf K
writes: [] The fact is, people self-select for study and career, and engineers, as a group, avoid artsy stuff, while arts students avoid geeky stuff. Why is only science-y stuff referred to as geeky? (I. e. why does [nearly] nobody ever refer to an arts geek?) [] -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read." - Groucho Marx |
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Best OS So Far
On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 21:03:21 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: In message , Wolf K writes: [] The fact is, people self-select for study and career, and engineers, as a group, avoid artsy stuff, while arts students avoid geeky stuff. Why is only science-y stuff referred to as geeky? (I. e. why does [nearly] nobody ever refer to an arts geek?) Do you know what the word "geek" originally referred to? A geek was someone in a sideshow at a circus--typically someone who did things like biting the heads of live chickens. I never want to be called a geek. |
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Best OS So Far
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
| Why is only science-y stuff referred to as geeky? (I. e. why does | [nearly] nobody ever refer to an arts geek?) Interesting question. I think it's probably because science people are less likely to be socialized and less likely to relate to other areas of knowledge and experience. They tend to think they know the stuff that matters. Artists see a place for scientists. Scientists don't see a place for artists. Which makes science people often stick out. I don't think that's really a science thing, though. Tech people are far more likely to be socially dysfunctional than general scientists. Scientists do creative thinking. Geeks think like machines. |
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Best OS So Far
Wolf K wrote:
The fact is, people self-select for study and career, and engineers, as a group, avoid artsy stuff The English department gives straight C marks to STEM students, when they join an English lit class. What incentive is there, to take courses like that ? Masochism ? If the playing field is not level, "get off the playing field". That's how it works. Paul |
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Best OS So Far
Mayayana wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote | Why is only science-y stuff referred to as geeky? (I. e. why does | [nearly] nobody ever refer to an arts geek?) Interesting question. I think it's probably because science people are less likely to be socialized and less likely to relate to other areas of knowledge and experience. They tend to think they know the stuff that matters. Artists see a place for scientists. Scientists don't see a place for artists. Which makes science people often stick out. I don't think that's really a science thing, though. Tech people are far more likely to be socially dysfunctional than general scientists. Scientists do creative thinking. Geeks think like machines. In a typical curriculum, how many electives are there ? And how many courses are "core" and unavoidable ? It would be pretty hard to make a dent in the humanities, when you have your regular course load to worry about. I took Introductory German (with at least two hours a week of speaking in German), Psych 100, Economics (ugh!), and Statistics for Nitwits (a summer course). Those were some of my electives. The psychology course was unintentionally the most educational - part of the course involves you volunteering six hours of your time over the year, to be a guinea pig for second year students carrying out some of the classic experiments. (You know, the experiment where a person in a white coat [an authority figure], tells you to give an electric shock to someone in the next room [who shrieks or whines in a convincing manner, as they're in on it]. You could say, in a sense, "I've taken a Theater course" :-) I found these to be very educational. The setups were *quite* elaborate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment Paul |
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Best OS So Far
"Paul" wrote
| It would be pretty hard to make a dent in the humanities, | when you have your regular course load to worry about. | That sounds like geek thinking. As WolfK said, you self-selected. To me it's an expression of both themes that we're talking about: On the one hand, you tended to avoid topics that were not interesting to you. (Just as most people avoid computers.) Also, your college didn't make any effort to expose you to other topics. Colleges have become little more than vocational school for white collar people. That results in people who are even less well-adapted to life than when they went in. They come out well-adapted only to their chosen field of work. Thus, grade school teachers who don't know a doc from a docx and can't write coherently, and tech people who can't dress or feed themselves properly. At one point I worked as a janitor at Harvard Business School, back in the early 80s. (Only for 90 days. Harvard was among the first to come up with the clever idea that if all workers were temps then Harvard wouldn't have to provide union employee benefits because no one would ever get into the union... They're not the top school for nothing. It was part of my job to follow after today's Fortune 500 CEOs when they had a break between classes, and pick up their candy wrappers off the floor as they hussled to cram in junk food from vending machines before their next class. Future world leaders, yet they couldn't feed themselves properly and couldn't clean up after themselves any better than a dog. The hallways were a stunning sight after those 24-25-year-olds stampeded through. And of course, they were never going to be trained in any such "irrelevant" matters. They were in training to make big money. They'd have spouses or assistants to handle their inability to conduct their lives properly. I'd guess the same situation probably holds today, except that the students are probably waving their cellphones at the vending machines, to pay $2 for a bottle of brand-name water, and eating "power bars" -- candy masquerading as healthy food. Snickers bars and soda are for the hoi polloi who don't know any better, after all. |
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