Bridging the Great Divide
Bridging the Great Divide
Between "savoir" and "savoir-faire"
I spent much of the last two weeks abed, playing host to uninvited guests of the microbial persuasion. During that time, when not asleep, I could do little more than watch videos. In particular, I enjoyed a mix of offerings that included a series in which a young Irishman refurbishes wood-working tools and programs presented by a cowboy who loves the language and lore of medieval Scandinavia.
In the world of formal schooling, the offerings of these two presenters fall into distinct categories. That is, while the shaping of a piece of ash wood into an axe handle belongs to the world of “handicrafts” while a reflection on the role played by ash trees in the world-view of persons of the Norse persuasion counts as “scholarship.” Nonetheless, as this information passed from the little screen on my souped-up mid-2012 Unibody MacBook Pro into my fever-fueled imagination, the words of the woodworker and the cowboy came together, reminding me of my long-standing desire to learn more about trees.
In much the same way, the venue that made possible this exercise in arboreal Hiberno-Norseness made no distinction between videos in which people were talking about literary qualities of trees and programs in which folks were making useful objects out of their mortal remains. In this way, the instructional offerings of the internet resemble those of a community college, where, like ebony and ivory, academic endeavors and practical pursuits live together in perfect harmony.
The experience of this happy symbiosis brought to mind yet another video. In that, lecture, ironically entitled Confessions of a Converted Lecturer, physics teacher Eric Mazur tells a tale of Harvard undergraddies who, while adept at the art of fiddling with formulae, proved unable to relate those equations to the interactions of physical objects.1
Professor Mazur provides a solution for this curious situation, but no explanation for its origin. I will therefore offer a hypothesis of my own.
The kids can’t relate the scribbles on the page to the behavior of planes, trains, and automobiles because they devoted too much effort to formal, highly structured, adult-directed instruction and too little time to tinkering. In other words, in the course of growing up, they got too much correction from purveyors of narrative logistics, and too little feedback from materials and machines, the silent street cops who, in backyards, sheds, and basements, ensure that no one, however well credentialed, gets away with violating the laws of physics.
Professor Mazur makes this point at minute mark 48:21.
Yes. You are absolutely correct. And while actual experience and tinkering is best, the kinds of instruction provided by true aficionados on Youtube is still better than the formal, highly structured instructured.
Of all my high school classes the only ones I can clearly remember (from the 1950’s) were either P. E. where I learned to swim and do some basic gymnastics or my one shop class where I built an electronic gizmo for monitoring your pulse. I am sure that I learned and absorbed a lot from the others but actual memories, not so much.