Mary is the most gifted student a science teacher could hope for. She laps up any and all information given to her, with her specialist field being the electromagnetic spectrum, colour, and the way humans perceive different wavelengths of light. She knows everything there is to know about colour – the possible wavelengths of visible light, the biological structures of the rods and cones which respond to that light, and the way the neural circuits connect up as the brain interprets each wave.
Unfortunately for Mary, she has never seen any colours. Not because she is blind, but because she has been raised entirely in a black and white room. She has simply never been exposed to colour.
Let’s get fruity
This is where I go out on a limb. Until now, I don’t think I’ve really said anything new. I’ve simply taken what has become reasonably well-established dogma in the “traditional” canon and applied it to science practicals. I hadn’t seen anyone else do that so I thought I would give it a crack. However, prepare for things to get a little bit fruity as I try out a new idea.
Traditionalists are big on knowledge (1). As I discussed (based entirely on other people’s hard work and research) in part 2, knowledge is what enables us to think with any kind of complexity about a given subject. Without knowledge about something, we cannot think about it.
So what about our student Mary? Can she be said to possess all the knowledge there is to know about colours and about light?
Frank Jackson, the author of this thought experiment, argues not. Because when Mary steps out of the room she was raised in and into the vibrant and polychromatic world which we inhabit, surely she learns something new: she learns what it is like to see colours. There is a new piece of knowledge which she acquires.
This thought experiment, along with others like the Chinese Room, The Chinese Nation and Philosophical Zombies, are arguments designed by philosophers to counter the charge that the human brain is like a computer – that it is a purely physical device (2). The argument goes that if Mary knows everything physical that there is to know, the brain must be something different, must contain states which cannot be explained in a purely physical way (3). I am certainly no expert in this, and many of the arguments fly right over my head, but the principle for teaching is pretty clear:there are some types of knowledge which can only be acquired through experience.
I don’t really see how this could be argued with. How could anyone say that “a student can have knowledge of what silver crystals forming on a copper wire look like” without ever having seen them? Or at least having seen crystals before. And silver before. And copper wire before.
I could teach students that magnesium combusting in air releases a bright white light, so bright it hurts to look at it, and a grey smoke that billows off the material. And sure, they could memorise that, and probably understand it. But on a very basic level they would have to put that into the context of something they had already experienced. And on a more sophisticated level: do we really think that, upon observation of said combustion, they do not learn what it is like to observe magnesium burning?
To put the problem into the language of cognitive science: if a student can describe the process of the combustion of magnesium, would that knowledge transfer if they were walking down the street two weeks later and saw a bright white light with grey smoke? Would they say “ah! that must be some magnesium combusting!” Maybe yes, but probably not (4).
So there may well be something that can only be taught through real world, hands on experience. I know that as a self-confessed traditionalist, those aren’t really the kinds of word I should be using; but I think it fits just the same.
Mary in action
But here is the rub. Let’s say Mary had a brother called Barry. Barry was also raised in a black and white room. But Barry wasn’t such a good student. He didn’t listen when being taught about colours. He didn’t read any of the black and white text books available to him. He doesn’t know nearly as much as his sister about colours.
When Barry is released to the world he certainly learns something. Just like his sister, he learns what it is like to see colour. But will his experience have the same richness? Mary will be able to instantly assimilate her new knowledge into pre-existing conceptual structures within her mind. Synapses will fire and thought will automatically spring to the front of her consciousness. Her experience will be deepened by her background knowledge of what light is, how it works and how it behaves. Barry however, will have a far shallower appreciation. Sure, it will still probably be a wonderful and striking experience. But will it strike the same note?
I suppose a more immediate example involves myself and an English-teacher friend going to see a hitherto undiscovered Shakespeare. I quite like Shakespeare and would probably enjoy the play. But probably not in the same way that my friend would. The converse is also true, and my experience of watching a new demo or some bizarre physical occurrence might be wildly different to theirs.
So I think I’ve regained my traditionalist street cred. This is all about knowledge, and it is about how we gain new knowledge and how our pre-existing knowledge influences the experience of gaining new knowledge. It doesn’t have to be as arcane as Mary the Super Scientist. It could just be a student looking at cells under a microscope, or watching the temperature change as wax melts. The experience matters, because it is knowledge itself.
Chanuka sameach and merry Christmas!
Introduction: are we wasting our time? – part 1
The Cognitive Science of Practical Science – part 2
Thinking Scientifically – part 3
Do Science Practicals Boost Engagement? – part 4
Mary the Super Scientists – part 5
Teaching Practical Skills: If You Aren’t A Science Teacher, Leave Me Alone – part 6
(1) Andrew Old published this just today
(2) For further reading I recommend anything by John Searle, especially Mind: A Brief Introduction or The Mystery of Consciousness.
(3) This doesn’t mean that the brain is somehow – God forbid – a spiritual device. See (2) further reading. I also think that each of these thought experiments contain important thinking points for teachers. Perhaps a blog for another time.
(4) See here for a primer on transfer
December 25, 2016 at 10:25 pm
“How could anyone say that “a student can have knowledge of what silver crystals forming on a copper wire look like” without ever having seen them?”
I understand the thought-experiment better when it relates to something such as sight, an ineffable basic sense that cannot be appreciated without direct experience.
When it is applied to a practical setting such as teaching in a classroom, I think it is more the case that because of imperfect students, imperfect pedagogy and imperfect communication, students would benefit from direct experience, and not necessarily because the fundamentals of epistemology are engaged.
Back to Mary. Just because she assimilates her new experience differently to her brother, I am not clear why that reduces experience to simply another form of knowledge.
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December 25, 2016 at 10:31 pm
It’s not that her different experience is what reduces her experience to knowledge, it is that her experience can be thought of as a new piece of knowledge. I think that’s what Jackson means. When moving to the classroom I think there is a mental state automatically generated on the acquisition of new knowledge, be it through an experiential mode or just having read it in a book. That state is enriched by having greater depth of knowledge related to (in schema with) the new piece of knowledge. And even if my students were perfect and I were perfect there is still new specific knowledge of what it is like
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December 25, 2016 at 10:55 pm
Despite being a biologist I’m quite squeamish and not a big fan of dissection. As a student I never did it and went to the library instead. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the heart – I did A-level Biology and physiology was part of my degree course. I could label all the parts and tell you what they did etc.
During my PGCE I dissected a heart for the first time and it made me realise that I didn’t know as much as I thought. A text book was definitely not the same. I know why the left side is thicker but diagrams don’t really show that it is – seeing it for myself was a real eye opener as there was such a contrast with the right side. I was observed just before Christmas with a Y10 class doing a heart dissection. I was asked afterwards whether I thought that the practical was worthwhile. I said that I believed it was as I felt they needed to see this themselves to make sense of all the theory we’d covered before. Holding a heart in my own hands taught me a lot more than reading could.
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December 26, 2016 at 5:35 pm
I enjoyed reading your thoughtful post, I was left wondering if in fact you have arrived at a pragmatic view of science education?
Your thoughts also raise interesting ideas for me in terms of when and why of practical work or ‘direct experience’ , as you have also done through mention of the microscope practical. For example teaching the laws of reflection or moments should pupils experience discovering the laws for themselves, leaving the teacher to confirm new understanding and challenge pupils with application of this nascent knowledge or vice versa?
I don’t have an answer but I would be interested in your thoughts.
Your recent blogs have also made me think about the role of ‘direct experience’ in building schema, perhaps in the same way the interesting work in cognitive science is suggesting; dual coding ‘works’?
Thank you for taking the time to ‘hunt assumptions’ about the role of practical work in science & share your thoughts
Andrew
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December 26, 2016 at 6:22 pm
Hi Andrew. Thanks for your comment and encouragement. I’ve enjoyed getting some of these thoughts off my head and the feedback I have received here and on twitter is invaluable (and entirely unanticipated!).
Regarding the idea of a pragmatic view of science education – bearing in mind that I’ve never seen pragmatism applied to education per se could you clarify exactly what you think that would mean?
“Your thoughts also raise interesting ideas for me in terms of when and why of practical work or ‘direct experience’ , as you have also done through mention of the microscope practical. For example teaching the laws of reflection or moments should pupils experience discovering the laws for themselves, leaving the teacher to confirm new understanding and challenge pupils with application of this nascent knowledge or vice versa?”
I’ve been reading a bit recently about Geary’s biologically primary and biologically secondary types of cognitive processes (see for example Didau’s presentation http://www.learningspy.co.uk/learning/robots-evolution-schools-shouldnt-teach-innate-skills/). I think that naturally we observe and experience phenomena and draw “folk” conclusions in the social, biological and physical spheres. If we just stick to the physical for the minute, as we grow we notice things about the world and make inferences e.g. that if I let go of this ball again it will fall to the floor. However, understanding that it falls with an acceleration in proportion to 1/r^2 would be secondary knowledge – it took tens of thousands of years and one of the finest minds ever to discover.
Primary knowledge is acquired easily. But it is often wrong as it does not really rely on our rational faculties. This is why it is open to practical misconception as well as rational criticism (e.g. Hume). Secondary knowledge is hard to acquire and requires maximal guidance (see Kirschner 2006).
So there are a couple of conclusions. The first is that the direct experience involved here strikes me as something that would fit with primary knowledge. Once you have seen magnesium burning, you now KNOW what-it-is-like to see magnesium burning. That’s instantaneous. But the next step, the understanding of what is actually occurring here, that must be secondary. In a month of sundays no student would ever discover for themselves that the magnesium must be reacting with oxygen which is an exothermic change as magnesium oxide is thermodynamically stable with respect to magnesium and oxygen etc etc (unless they already had a wealth of background knowledge which just pushes the question back a step).
But let’s take an exam question “what is observed when magnesium is combusted in air?” for which the answer is “a bright white light.” You don’t need this what-it-is-like type of knowledge to answer that question. So if we just focus on the knowledge “a bright white light” then no, you do not need the experience. As you mentioned, the principle of dual coding or multimedia instruction might make that answer more memorable, but it isn’t exactly what I mean here. I mean a brand new type of knowledge, a thing in and of itself which does not recourse to anything else, it is a type of knowledge of what-it-is-like (the philosophers call this epiphenomonelogical qualia).
So as per my part 3, I don’t think that allowing students to discover the laws for themselves with teacher role limited to confirmation or challenge is efficient or effective for securing secondary knowledge. But I do think that for securing the fundamentally different type of knowledge of what-it-is-like then there is no way to do it other than by direct experience. However, that doesn’t say anything at all about the teacher’s role.
The next step for me is to argue that the richness of that what-it-is-like knowledge gaining experience is increased by already having a pre-built schema of information.
I apologise for the length of my comment and I hope it makes sense!
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December 26, 2016 at 11:08 pm
I share your opinion of the inefficiency of “discovery learning” — if Science was that bloody simple it wouldn’t have taken us thousands of years to reach our current level!
From my own experience, I do think practical work is valuable (https://emc2andallthat.wordpress.com/2016/12/22/songs-in-the-key-of-energy/) but it is sometimes hard to justify. You can achieve good exam results with the drill-and-kill “bright white light” method — and I know some schools have gone down that path.
The problem, I think, is understanding what is meant by “knowledge”. Perhaps practical knowledge adds to the “knowing how” pile rather than the “knowing that” pile…? (https://emc2andallthat.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/knowledge-vs-skills-big-endians-vs-little-endians/)
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December 27, 2016 at 8:36 am
Knowledge is anything that causes a change in long term memory. If that is “knowledge that shoe laces can be tied” or “knowledgeof how to tie my shoe laces” I’m not too bothered!
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December 27, 2016 at 11:29 am
But surely “knowledge that shoe laces can be tied” causes a less significant change in long term memory than “knowledge of how shoe laces can be tied” — the two are not equivalent, are they?
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December 27, 2016 at 11:36 am
Not equivalent in what sense? They are both pieces of knowledge..
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December 27, 2016 at 11:39 am
Agreed, but one is more complex than the other: like knowing that Mg burns with a bright white light and having a picture in your mind’s eye from experience of how it looks, smells and sounds as it burns
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December 27, 2016 at 11:44 am
But that is a question of degree. They can still justifiably be held in the same category.
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December 27, 2016 at 12:29 pm
Definitely, yes. But as teachers, wouldn’t we prefer that the long term change in memory was the more complex and nuanced knowledge?
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December 27, 2016 at 1:03 pm
Generally sure. But it will differ from case to case
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December 27, 2016 at 3:22 pm
Most certainly yes: “The experience matters, because it is knowledge itself”.
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January 24, 2017 at 6:02 pm
Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber.
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