Subject: Re: book project Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 00:26:42 -0400 From: "Win Wenger, Ph.D." To: Sunni Maravillosa CC: John McPherson , anakin@dur.mindspring.com, mcole@napanet.net, mjoyner@botree.com, GeoNelson@aol.com, "Rolls Straveca (SRCS)" , "Swcgluck@aol.com" , RickAshby@aol.com, Kuene@cts.com (Corbin/Kuenemen), jheflin@mail.portup.com, Tice@writeme.com (Tice Tansil), Frank@gerryts.demon.co.uk, e7750010@tsai.es (Ana Robles), tazz4@ix.netcom.com (Michael V) Sunni - we're all in the same boat on this, and at least you have the head start of being a cognitive psychologist. There is not, to my best knowledge, an established body of literature doing what we are aiming to do. We'll have to invent it as we go. Well--it's not quite that dire. Remember that famous episode in Rudyard Kipling's Kim where the guru smashed a vase and tried to hypnotize Kim into seeing the vase magically come back together? --And Kim managed to shake off the influence and see clearly with his own eyes what was happening? After that made a pretty good impression on me in my early childhood, I noticed the same theme go by many years later in Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy. I started reading AE Van Vogt's novels about age 8 or 9; his novel about Nexialism (under the ungainly title Voyage of the Space Beagle) made some of its precepts quite real to my young mind. A little later, finding the first two of his Null-A series (didn't find the 3rd until many years later) led directly to my reading Korzybski's main book at age 11, a major life-changer and, quite frankly, that development was the inspiration for my notion which started thisd project. If, through attractive works of fiction, we can reach millions of youngsters beyond reach otherwise with a clear experience of what it is to perceive-&-respond, to think things through clearly, to be ingenious.... My Philosopher's Stone story was too much "what" to fit into our proposed first priority but even that had elements showing young Ed struggling to find some way to avoid killing any more dragons, coming up not only with creative solutions but with ways which made everyone come out ahead with a win--and showed a little of what was going on in the minds of those dragons as well. Maybe that's enough of a start to get your mind juices going on this? We've built context back and forth now, I think one or another of us might manage to ignite from here and suck all of us up along in the flames..... --win At 04:42 PM 4/8/98 -0600, you wrote: >Hi Win, > >>One thing has come up, though, that will concern all of us, >>because I had not clearly thought through this project until one of our >>core group brought me face to face with our main and ideal priority: >>teaching children not WHAT to think and perceive, but HOW. > Absolutely! > >>Question - however other matters resolve: how would YOU be at writing >>stories teaching HOW to think and perceive? --win > Ack! :-) I'm embarrassed to admit that, although I'm an >experimental/cognitive psychologist, I haven't given this much thought at >all. I _am_ trying to generate income through my writing, and have tried my >hand at stories like this, but not ones targeted for a younger audience. >I'd be willing to try it, but I'd like some more information/pointers >before doing so. > >If you know of anyone who might be able to advise me on that, or a good >website with such information, I'll begin investigating it. > >Take care, > >Sunni > >=========================================== >Have you read the story about the million-dollar >tortoise, the toxicity of fresh water, and the US >gummint essentially handing a worldwide market >to a Chinese industry? > http://home.lrt.org/lrt.molycorp.htm >===========================================