Hold two things in mind

I never realized that holding two operations in mind would be this difficult. It surprised me. The age group being 10-11 years. I had given kids a series of statements, some correct some false. They had to first correct the false sentences and then write them out in the natural order.

This threw many of them in chaos. Should we write the correct statements also ? What to do with the false statements that are in some order ? The kids weren't all comfortable with the question. To understand and execute these two together needed a child to hold bigger picture in mind, to do it in a single step. He/she had to see the corrections and correct order in mind together.

As grown-ups, we can do a sequence of operations with ease. Some talented people can  set priorities to operations to make computation easier. Some can readily see which operations are dependent on each other, and which other are independent and parallel. However, this is a very high-level competence.

In schools we typically put questions with specific operations. And often with a single specific way to arrive at the answer. The real life is full of multiple and inter-dependent operations. Are we doing enough to train children to manipulate operations, themselves ? Not quite.

We may need to do innovative exercises. Teach them to hold two operations in mind. And then to prioritise them intelligently. 

Sense of 'to have'

This week our class visited an archaeological museum. The museum has extensive collection of artefacts from as far back as the Stone age, displayed with detailed information about each collection. We had allowed students to carry cameras so that they can document what they saw for their study. As one would expect, the students enjoyed the excursion and collected photos.

Something interesting happened at the very end of our trip. One boy said that, he now has a lot of information about ancient things. He said, "Its all stored here in my camera". And one girl asked me how could she work, because she didn't carry her camera.

To us 'having information' means knowing the thing. I tried arguing this with him that he may have collected a lot of photos, however that is different from he having the information. Also, I told the girl to go ahead and write down or draw the things that she thinks are important. But to them that wasn't same as 'having' information of 'their own'.

To these children 'having information' is same has possessing that information in their hand. They think, if they own a print-out or a photo then they literally have the information.

This may suggest that today children aren't treating information as something to be understood, interpreted and integrated with their own knowledge. Information, to them, is a thing to own. And they would store it safely for many years, ofcourse on the net.