TalentEd No. 56, Summer 1997

Ross (7) said punishment is not the same thing as revenge 'because revenge is trying to get back at someone and punishment means when you do something wrong your mum smacks you.' He thought revenge wrong 'because that means that you are trying to hurt someone.' His answer to 'Is it right to punish?' was 'Yes and no because there are other ways of saying it.' He thought that parents should punish children 'because sometimes you are really bad and your mum has to smack you as hard as she can.' Teachers should punish children 'because you might have been really bad and the teacher would have to send you outside.'

Meaghan (12) said she did not think it right to take revenge. 'God says to forgive, though sometimes I sin and take revenge.' She thought parents must punish children. 'If little kids draw on the wall they get a smack to show them not to do it again.' If teachers don't punish 'the kids will get worse and be naughty.'

Emma (9) said that teachers should reward children 'but not so that it looks like what they have done is better than what the other people have done.' She thought that parents and teachers 'should tell [children] they don't like what they are doing' [instead of punishing].

Peter (15) said that 'punishment is the same thing as revenge' but by different people. Revenge is when you punish the person that has harmed you. Punishment is when the law or government gives out punishment.' Revenge is 'the same thing, but when you yourself give out the punishment.' Parents should punish children 'but not horribly - otherwise a bad parent-child relationship forms.'

Kathleen (14) said that if there were no punishment it would not be possible for people to think they could forgive themselves.

Paula (11) questioned whether the speed of light is the fastest: 'How long does it take for a thought to get from your mind to your lips?'

Kathleen (13) said that light travels in 'geometrical straight lines' but added 'What is a straight line?'

Peter (15) said that 'light can be curved by gravity or reflected and refracted using lenses. Unaffected light will travel in straight lines.' He said also that 'now it is expected that there are particles which can't travel less than the speed of light.'

In reply to 'What is a pattern?' Meaghan (13) wrote 'The continuation of something. A repetition.' Paula (10) said that not all patterns are made by people: 'God has made many patterns in the earth.' Rachel (13) answered 'Why do people like patterns?' by 'How do you know people like patterns? They might not.' Ross (7) replied to 'How many possible patterns are there?' by 'Humungously huge and lots.' He defined a pattern as 'Well, it has orange blue orange blue.'

Peter (15) said that 'People don't like patterns. They like some patterns. It's like saying that people like all paintings.' He said 'everything we see is made up of patterns.'

Allyson (16) wrote that 'a pattern is a somewhat organised order of things where one thing, sound or image is repeated or not repeated, as non-repetition is also a pattern where each thing is different.'

None of the answers to 'Do animals make patterns?' mentioned nests, honeycombs or anything made by animals. There were references to the patterns of feathers, footprints and the flight of birds. I had expected that 'Why do people like patterns?' might produce the answer that we like patterns because everything is patterned, but nobody suggested this.

Daniel (12) said that people like patterns because they 'like to be able to predict.'

Peter (15), commenting on the book, The Chicken from Minsk (Russian puzzles), said 'These are not really deep thought questions. They are mathematical questions.'

Kathleen (14), having written 'Yes and No' in answer to a question on the validity of the conclusion in a logical argument, pointed out, correctly, that 'necessarily true' is often used to mean simply 'true' whether any proof is involved or not.

The children had difficulty in deciding whether this argument is valid: 'Either Peter is away or his telephone is out of order. Peter is away. Therefore his telephone is not out of order.' (It is invalid.) As usual, they also had difficulty with a 'Some A are not B' argument: 'Some reptiles are not crocodiles. Therefore some crocodiles are not reptiles.' (Byron had the same trouble. He wrote in a poem: 'If lightning can be without thunder, thunder can be without lightning.' (This is neither valid nor true.)

Kathleen (14) commented on the argument 'If this boy goes to Armidale High he will not be wearing a blue uniform. This boy is not wearing a blue uniform. Therefore this boy goes to Armidale High.' She said that a child too young to know about schools and uniforms would not be able to deal with a question like that. In doing a series of questions about patterns she replied to 'Can you see patterns in this room now? If so, where?' by 'To everything there is a rhythm and if I was immense enough ...' she did not finish the sentence. I think she means there are patterns which we could, if sufficiently skilled, find in everything. She commented that pattern is connected with emotion, and that emotion predates humans &endash; 'animals have emotions.'

Jenny (15) suggested that music began 'as a way of passing on stories because the rhythmic pattern may have been easier to understand than words.'

Allyson (16) replied to 'Do all countries have music?' by 'You could argue that even vocal patterns have music.'

Paula (10) said that 'Some compose for money, others compose for pleasure.'

Peter (15) wrote 'All music can be thoughtful. Just because something is thoughtful it isn't necessarily sad.' He said people compose music 'because it gives them satisfaction, just like if you had built a house or drawn a masterpiece.'

Daniel (12) thought that 'Sad music is slow music with lots of flats.' He said that music began with 'people tapping rhythms.' And that they compose music 'for fun.'

 

 

TalentEd No. 57, Autumn 1997

When I asked Perry (5) 'Do we know that we know something, or only think we do?' he asked what it would mean if he said 'Yes' to that. Would it mean 'know' or 'think'?

Ross (7) answered 'What sorts of things can animals learn?' by 'Nothing because they don't have one bit of brain. They only know to get food and walk.' 'Their parents' teach them to do those things. It is good to be educated 'because you feel really proud that you have achieved something. Well, you feel really great.' He stated that all the subjects I listed in a question are important in education 'because you need to really know everything like Miss Mackie because when a person doesn't know something and you can't answer it, well you can't answer it, full stop.' Some television helps people to be educated &endash; 'because it has information of the screen.' There is a difference between 'education' and knowledge 'because knowledge is knowing something and education is getting to know something'.

Paula (11) thought that all words have meaning. I asked what 'bow' means as in 'The dog said "Bow wow".' Paula said that 'the dog obviously knows what it means'.

Peter (15) answered 'where do your ideas come from?' by 'Somehow my brain makes them. A certain amount of randomness places recognised objects together to create new scenarios or ideas.' To 'Can you have an idea of something you have never seen?' by 'Why not? By chance and over time almost anything can happen.' He wrote that 'Everything you imagine is true, for ideas are possessed only by reality and can't exist without reality. Therefore everything we imagine can be thought of as being true or is reality.' (I think this is the equivalent of 'Nothing is in the mind which was not previously in the senses' though he has not been told this.)

Ross (7) replied to 'Can you have an idea of something you have not seen?' by 'Yes. Because I haven't seen my brain but I have seen a lamb's brain.' People get the ideas for pictures they paint 'from other pictures'. 'How can you know whether what you imagine is true?' 'Well, if you are in Grade 2 which I am you would know what was true and what wasn't.'

Paula (11) thought you always know where your ideas come from 'otherwise you wouldn't be able to think them. Though on the other hand you usually don't know where you get the wacky ideas in dreams.' She did not know where people who paint pictures get their ideas: 'I'm not really sure because I don't really paint pictures.'

Rachael (13), answering 'Do you always know where your ideas come from?' said 'No. I think a lot of them come from my subconscious brain, where memories have been stored away in musty filing cabinets and have been triggered off by something.' To 'Could you have an idea of something nobody had ever thought of before?' she answered 'Yes. Someone has to invent new things, eg, TV, washing machines, dishwasher, etc., and it may as well be me.' People invent things 'by using their knowledge and creativity, and thinking 'what if ...'.' She thought people will keep on inventing new things 'as long as people can be bothered.' Her answer to 'How can you know if what you imagine is true?' was 'You can't really, unless you ask someone who you know will know.' Her twin sister, Meaghan, said that 'Most things you imagine aren't true.' Meaghan said that it is possible to have an idea nobody has thought of before because 'Your mind is unique - and you think with your mind, therefore you think uniquely.'

Peter (15) replied to 'Is it right to do some things and not to do others?' by 'It's a question of beliefs. I believe you should "only do to others as you wish them to do to you". However, some people believe in sacrifice and being born into classes.' His answer to 'Is it right to go to school?' was 'If you wish to learn. However, even if you do wish to learn school often can't provide the answer.'

Ross (7) said that people don't still live in caves 'because they are richer and that is the old-fashioned way.' He thought that the first person to invent a house 'must have been really clever.' That reminds me of another seven-year-old who, when I was putting him to bed suddenly announced: 'Somebody must have thunk of wardrobes.' Ross thought that people did not always cook food 'because some people like raw eggs or raw mushrooms.' Whether our music is better than that made hundreds of years ago 'depends on what it sounds like and what people think of it.' Good music is 'really nice and calm and sometimes soft music.'

Paula (11) in reply to 'What is music?' wrote: 'Music is a sound. We can not see or touch it yet we know it is there. Music is powerful. It can fill heads with joy and soothe troubled minds.'

Rachael (13) defined 'time' as something humans use to measure when things change. Her twin sister wrote (independently) 'Time is something that continually changes so that we can use it to measure things.' In reply to 'Would space still exist if everything in the universe disappeared?' Rachael wrote 'Yes. You're saying if everything in the universe disappeared, which leaves all the space where everything used to be ... however, what is the universe? It is really a name for everything in it.' Meaghan answered 'If everything in the universe were a mile further north, would that make any difference?' by 'No, it would simply alter the position of the poles.' To 'If nothing ever changed, would time exist?' 'No. Time is something that changes. That's what time is, and if time never changed it wouldn't exist. It's just like saying 'Would an apple be an apple if it weren't made of fruit?'

Peter (15) said that time would not exist if nothing ever changed: 'Time is the measurement of change.' His answer to 'Would space still exist if everything in the universe disappeared?' was 'Space is a meaningless word.' He replied to 'How could we measure time if we had no clocks?' by 'A clock is an instrument for measuring time, eg, the sun is a clock. So the answer is that we couldn't tell the time without clocks.'

Kathleen (15) told me that her father, who was a student of mine when he was a teacher trainee, has been telling her about our lectures on the pre-Socratic philosophers, who discussed the problem of what everything is made of - water? air? fire? earth? She asked why they concerned themselves with this question: 'It doesn't help people to get food.'

Kathleen's answer to 'If nothing ever changed, would time exist?' was 'No. Change is vital to existence, like an instrument when music has died, time means nothing without the will of existence (or even totality).' She wrote that 'time is growth rhythm in space.' In trying to determine whether time would exist if everything in the universe disappeared she speculated on the possibility of everything's 'going back to its place' and suggested that the expanding universe might 'contract back to being very small'.

Peter (15) said that 'play is enjoyable work.' He defined work as 'everything that uses energy'. His answer to 'Should everybody work?' was 'You can't live without doing any work, for example, breathing, eating, etc.' 'What would happen if nobody worked?' 'We would all be dead and the world would be a better place.' I asked for more explanation. He said 'Humans are just a burden to the world. They destroy it. Perhaps all animals do, but humans are the worst.'

I gave Perry (5) some logic questions as he seemed worried by the open-ended ones. He replied correctly to 'If Ted is the same height as Bob and Bob is the same height as Kevin, is Ted taller than Kevin?' and to 'If A equals B and B equals C does A equal C?' He solved 'x = y + 2; y = 6; what is x?' but said the next question was too hard. It was 'x + y = 10; x - y = 2; What is x? What is y?'

Perry (5) said that people sometimes do unfair things, an example being 'To me. Get cross and not let me have "free choice" [his favourite school session]. Because I was a bit naughty and I just forgot. Why should someone blame me? I just forgot for a moment. I forgot to behave properly.' He said that children 'mostly' do not do unfair things, but sometimes 'Yes. They hurt me.' He defined 'unfair' as 'not kind'. He thought it fair that some people have more money than others, but then said 'but not with poor people, because they don't have enough money. Rich people have too much money.' He did not think governments should have to make people more equal, but when I mentioned taking from the rich to give to the poor, he said (apparently with approval) that 'in Robin Hood the bad person who was very rich tried to get more. Robin Hood made it more equal.' Perry has been reading chemistry for two years, knows the elements, and spontaneously told me the properties of argon.

Gerry (6) thought that frogs can remember what they did when they were tadpoles. He claimed to remember things (unspecified) that happened before he was two years old, 'when I was a baby'.

None of the older participants (Years 10 and 11) thought work different from play. One wrote that 'if you really enjoy what you are doing you are playing, and vice versa.' Jenny (16) replied to 'Should everybody work?' by 'If everybody works then it makes things run much more smoothly for everyone else. If you wanted to be selfish I don't see how anyone could force you to work.' She thought work good for people 'if you achieve whatever it is that you set out to do.'

Margaret Mackie, Armidale

©TalentEd is located at the School of Education, University of New England, Armidale, Australia.

This page updated: 23 January 2006 Webmaker: Howard Smith. hsmith4@une.edu.au