An interesting link about learning. . .

[gwenny99]

Its a bit long - 15 minutes, but very interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hJCxSiH4ts

[vantage]

I got all of his questions correct. I agree with him that there are many topics in science that are not taught correctly and that the misconceptions that result pervade many other topics and in turn create more misconceptions.

In school, I was the undesireable type of student who could catch these things and insist on asking questions about it until the teachers were not happy. I can remember asking a teacher about "absolute value" and thought it was pretty arbitrary that you can just change the of a negative number to a positive value by putting the lines around the number. THey insisted in not explaining it, and I suggested that we could all so that with out bank balances when they went negative, and with the points subtracted for wrong answers on a text. Other student had the same questions and they were glad I was persisting.

This went on in 7,8,9,grades and not until 10th grade did the teacher put a number line on the board and explain that the absolute value was the distance from zero, regardless of the direction. BINGO, understanding. Thankyou for that sir. Now, 3 other professional Math teachers had has no concept how to explain that, which might mean that they did not understand it themselves.

This is typical example as are his, that much learning in our school systems is rote memorization and not a learning of knowledge that can be applied with thinking to a multitude of things we encounter.

[gwenny99]

I have a lot of students who have NO IDEA how to use a comma, because it was never taught. It was either arbitrary, or they were taught the "natural pause" method (natural pause? are you kidding me?). Kids want to know why things happen - ask any 3 yr old!! They even want to know why they need stinking commas - tell them already!!

[Autumnleavz]

I had a problem with commas too. I didn't even realize it until last year's english comp in college. My prof. kept telling me "unnecessary comma" constantly. I had to relearn how to use them completely!
As a writer, I was thinking...well, that's why no one is buying my books!