November 2010 – Page 3 – Montessori Muddle

Good editing: Whittling to the bare essentials

I’d like to try this idea for writing assignments:

Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.

I don’t care about the topic. I care about the editing. I care about the constant refinement and compression. I care about taking three pages and turning it one page. Then from one page into three paragraphs. Then from three paragraphs into one paragraph. And finally, from one paragraph into one perfectly distilled sentence.

Along the way you’d trade detail for brevity. Hopefully adding clarity at each point. This is important because I believe editing is an essential skill that is often overlooked and under appreciated. The future belongs to the best editors.

Each step requires asking “What’s really important?” That’s the most important question you can ask yourself about anything. The class would really be about answering that very question at each step of the way. Whittling it all down until all that’s left is the point.

— Jason F. (2010) in Signal vs. Noise: The class I’d like to teach.

A few changes

FYI: I’ve changed the Muddle’s website address from http://earthsciweb.org/MontessoriMuddle/ to the much simpler, http://MontessoriMuddle.org/. Links to the old url should automatically redirect, but let me know if I missed something (the comments section of this post would be great, or even by email).

Mariner AO: Discovering the Americas

Bobert_II — The route of the good ship Bobert II.

We just used my sailing game, Mariner AO, to help wrap up the group presentations on the European exploration of the Americas, and it worked wonderfully!

The small groups did their presentations timewise, starting with the Vikings (don’t ask me about Leprechauns), then the Spanish, the French (don’t ask me about giant sharks and flying pigs), and finally the English. At the end, we had half an hour left, but instead of just tying it together with a graphic organizer, I wanted to show them Mariner AO because the North Atlantic wind circulation ties in so wonderfully well with the pattern of colonization.

I started trying to show it off as a group, having them tell me which direction to sail the ship to get to the Americas. As you could probably predict that didn’t work particularly well. Everyone was yelling out directions at cross-purposes; however, it did give me the chance to show them all how the game worked.

Even with all the confusion the group seemed to like the game. Someone even suggested, “Why didn’t we do this for group work.” And I though, “Why not?” So the class broke apart for 25 minutes to see who could discover America first.

There was a lot of excitement in the room. I offered them extra points for the team that reached America first. They all know how empty that reward is by now so I think most of the excitement really came from being able to play a game with a little bit of competition.

playing-mariner-ao-adj — Building a ship to try to discover America.

The website still has a few bugs, especially on our older computers, but it worked. Three of the four groups reached the Americas, though two of them landed on the Canadian coast. The third group may well have ended up there as well, but I dropped a hint about Columbus’ route that sent them sailing into the Caribbean.

At least two kids planned on trying it at home. I had to pry one of the groups away from the computer so they could get their end-of-the-day jobs done on time.

We took screen captures of routes they took, and tomorrow we’ll put it all together, talk about the trade winds, what Columbus knew, and why the Iberians colonized South America while the French and English ended up mostly in the North.

Symbols versus ideas

Where facts exceed curiosity, we end up relying on symbols and symbolic language that are weighted with emotional meaning that are detached from ideas, according to Walter Lippmann as described by Geoffrey Nunberg on On The Media this weekend.

I think you can see this fairly clearly with adolescents. When they lack the interest, motivation, curiosity and information they tend to resort to slogans and cliché’s instead of looking up information or making thoughtful, logical arguments.

It also may be a marker for cognitive development, though interestingly, in my experience, it seems that more abstract thinking leads to less use of symbology and more reasoning. Partly, I suspect, its because they’re also acquiring the language to express more complex ideas, but adolescent education needs to include lots of opportunities for logically taking apart symbols.

I’ve started a pattern in class that I’ve noticed students picking up with each other.

If someone says something like, “It was good,” I ask, “Why?”

If they say, “I liked it,” I say, “Because?”

Often the first answer is along the lines of, “Because it was good,” but persistence with the whys’ and becauses’ will usually lead to some actual information and ideas. Over time, the mining process gets easier as students come to expect it and realize what you’re aiming for.

On The Media: Waste, Fraud and Abuse:

Between reticence and loquaciousness

Montessori normalization lies somewhere between the extremely reticent and the overly loquacious. I have both endmembers in my classroom, so I’m wondering it would help or hurt to use Lucius Aemilius Paulus’ speech as a topic for a Socratic dialogue.

In every circle, and truly, at every table, there are people who lead armies into Macedonia; who know where the camp ought to be placed; what posts ought to be occupied by troops; when and through what pass that territory should be entered; where magazines should be formed; how provisions should be conveyed by land and sea; and when it is proper to engage the enemy, when to lie quiet and they not only determine what is best to be done, but if any thing is done in any other manner than what they have pointed out, they arraign the consul, as if he were on trial before them. These are great impediments to those who have the management of affairs; for every one cannot encounter injurious reports with the same constancy and firmness of mind as Fabius did, who chose to let his own ability be questioned through the folly of the people, rather than to mismanage the public business with a high reputation.

I am not one of those who think that commanders ought at no time to receive advice; on the contrary, I should deem that man more proud than wise, who regulated every proceeding by the standard of his own single judgment. What then is my opinion? That commanders should be counseled chiefly by persons of known talent, by those who have made the art of war their particular study, and whose knowledge is derived from experience, by those who are present at the scene of action, who see the enemy, who see the advantages that occasions offer, and who, like people embarked in the same ship, are sharers of the danger.

If, therefore, anyone thinks himself qualified to give advice respecting the war which I am to conduct, let him not refuse the assistance to the State, but let him come with me into Macedonia.

He shall be furnished with a ship, a tent, even his traveling charges will be defrayed, but if he thinks this is too much trouble, and prefers the repose of a city life to the toils of war, let him not on land assume the office of a pilot. The city in itself furnishes abundance of topics for conversation. Let it confine its passion for talking to its own precincts and rest assured that we shall pay no attention to any councils but such as shall be framed within our camp.

— General Lucius Aemilius Paulus (229-160 B.C.), from Livy’s The History of Rome, Book 44, Chapter 22.