Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 11:59:20 -0500 From: "Win Wenger, Ph.D." To: kuene@cts.com, mcpherso, anakin@dur.mindspring.com, mcole@napanet.net, mjoyner@botree.com, GeoNelson@aol.com, straveca@erols.com, Swcgluck@aol.com, RickAshby@aol.com, jheflin@mail.portup.com, Tice@writeme.com, Frank@gerryts.demon.co.uk, e7750010@tsai.es, tazz4@ix.netcom.com Gentlepersons - this was another idea-kicker, more directly on the target of our objectives, maybe. I've got a few more of these I'll be gathering up and passing along, maybe. This started out as a winsights column over in Botree. Stuff that could be done by teachers and/or parents (or a system of lightly trained volunteers - siblings, neighvborhood projects, grandparents, enrichment centers and the like, a vehicle for advancing more than just these few activities maybe..... >Winsights by win wenger, ph.d. > >Unlike hundreds of other profoundly accelerative or enhancing techniques >developed by Project Renaissance, these are two methods of teaching and >learning which have not yet been tried. We'd like to see what you can do >with them. Let us hear from you. > >SOME UNTRIED NEW METHODS TO EXPERIMENT WITH AND REPORT ON, TO IMPROVE: >LEARNING; PERCEPTION, CONCEPTUAL ABILITY IN YOUNG CHILDREN--- > >1. Sherlock Cruises The GEOGRAPHIC > > Organize children into tables or teams of 3-4. Provide each team with a >selection of 2-3 or more pictures from The National Geographic or equivalent. > > Level One: > > A] One child describes as much as s/he can of the one selected picture >while the other children either look away or "rest their eyes" and try to >picture in their own mind's eye what's being described. > > B] Each of the listening children then tries to tell everything that that >description suggests to them about the location, climate, culture, >demographics, whatever else about who and what is depicted in that picture, >from the one child's description. > > C] Now everyone looks at the picture, and the former listeners describe >what differences it makes for them actually seeing the picture, in what >they were guessing or speculating about who and what were in the picture. >Example: the steep roofs of buildings suggesting the climate has much heavy >rain or snow; clothing that suggests a hot time of year in an otherwise >cool climate..... > > Caption and brief digest of article from which the picture was excerpted, >provides feedback. Each child gets his/her turn as observer-describer, on a >different picture. Emphasize this as game and treat, not as a lesson. > > Level Two: > > Most of my techniques are intended for easy use by teachers, without time >and effort spent in special preparation. In Level Two, however, this could >be made into somewhat more of a scored game if the teacher has points of >geography he/she wants to teach with this, or to give a little more formal >structure and/or competitive impetus w/o actual competition. If the 3-4 >pictures cycled are on the same locale and people, a simple checklist or >"test" of who, what, where and how at the end of the cycle could lend an >informal scorecard so long as the teacher goes to some lengths to keep this >an informal game and not a "lesson." More important by far than any >particulars of correct or incorrect will be getting children used to >looking at all sorts of things with an increasingly perceptive eye and >being entertained by what they can figure out. Letting this become a lesson >or a real competition would kill such a development in all but a few, >whereas we want everyone to become more observant, and more entertained by >what s/he can figure out from what s/he sees. > > An easy further step is to get children to "go meta" to their own >perceptual and thought and languaging processes. This greatly encourages >the growth and development of their higher-level functions, to such a >splendid extent that it is one of my own major objectives to get young >children, especially, to start looking at their own perceptions and >thinking analytically and creatively about their own thinking. > > Variance: Some few young individuals will stand out spectacularly well in >the above activity; others will not. We need to find some ways to support >these few individuals in the further development and upper ranges of their >success, without daunting the other children before they can bring their >own functions up. Prediction: without exception, these few young >indivciduals will usually also be voracious, wide-ranging readers who have >built a broad information base through their irrepressible >reading-for-entertainment. Problem: if that prediction holds true: how to >use thaty outcome to motivate voracious reading in other children without >targeting one-another's differences and without daunting some of the >children whose initial "Sherlockian" performances are much more modest. > >2. How did he/she DO that? - an art-related developmental procedure. > >Arrange children in pairs; the pairs also paired closely enough to overhear >each other but not interacting formally. Only within their own pair will >the children interact formally. Taking turns, each with a different picture >work of art-- > > A. One child describes in as much detail as s/he can the one picture. The >other looks away or "rests his/her eyes," then asks questions about the >picture and/or tries to "predict" other aspects or features of that picture >from that description. > > B. Describer then identifies 2-3 special features about the painting and >speculates what the artist did which enabled him/her to so create or >execute that feature. Did he sketch first and paint over; did he use >such-&-such a brush stroke or other technique? Did he lay down one color >first and then daub over it? Just guessing, how did the aretist DO that? > > C. Listener now looks at the painting, and describes-- > > 1. What's now in his awarenesss about the painting that wasn't before he >looked at it? > 2. Counter-speculations about how the artist executed each of those 2-3 >features. > 3. 1-2 further such features in the painting and speculations how the >artist achieved those effects. > > D. Both children now begin experimenting onto paper testing their >hypotheses how the artist may have created each of those special feature >effects. Then go on to free-form their own paintings, with or without >regard to the foregoing. > > E. The paired groups de-brief to each other. > >Note: encourage children to describe in detail everything that went through >their minds as they painted their pictures,m and while they were creating >this or that feature. > >Objectives: To engage the power of dewcription to enrich and inform vision >in the context of art. To make it real for children how there are different >ways of seeing things, and different ways of creating effects in and out of >art. Also to start especially young children thinking in terms of how they >might portray this or that effect, and to let that thought further inform >their vision. Becoming more effective representational artists can be a >further objective - the ease with which this is achieved by this and >similar approaches can be important to self-esteem and thus to achievement >and performance in all other areas of the curriculum. The previous >objectives are, however, the more important and must be protected from any >tendency of students to either formally compete or to become invidiously >self-critical. > >If you perform such an experiment as either of these: inform me of the >details and as much on the results as possible. If you get up anything at >all worthwhile, I will help you publish, on several levels. > >I will also welcome suggested procedures from you which extend the range, >interest and variety of colorful activities wherein children develop their >conscious minds, their language, their intelligence, their vision, and >their independence of vision, by interactive, expressive, increasingly >articulate means. Between us, perhaps we finally can fire up our children >and our schools with better methods and better results - in time to help >the ones you care about!!! > > ____________________________________________ > >Unlike hundreds of other profoundly accelerative or enhancing techniques >developed by Project Renaissance, the above two methods have not yet been >tried. We'd like to see what you can do with them. Let us hear from you.