An astrophysicist's tribute to Stephen Hawking

"His passing has left an intellectual vacuum in his wake. But it's not empty. Think of it as a kind of vacuum energy permeating the fabric of spacetime that defies measure. Stephen Hawking, RIP 1942-2018." ~~ Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter

Herbartianism Made Fun and Easy, Part Six: On observation and interest

Part Five is here.

Quick, what colour are the bottoms of the shoes you're wearing?

If you're not wearing shoes, what colour are your socks?

How much milk is in your refrigerator?

What, exactly, does it say on the front of your computer printer?

How did you do? Don't worry if you did not pass these typical tests of observation skills, because Sir John Adams asserts (in Herbartian Psychology, Chapter VI) that those facts are at present of no consequence. There is no shame in not knowing exactly how many buttons are on a shirt.

But what is observation for? Is the habit itself more important than actual facts? Adams beats around the bush on this one:

"The observationist educationist...wants the pupil to observe everything. He writes books like that tiresome 'Eyes and No Eyes.' He tells us of one-eyed dervishes who see more with their one eye than most of the rest of the world do with two....he points to the marvellous deeds of Sherlock Holmes."

Then he has the temerity to poke fun at nature walks.

"The pupil is supposed to go along with all his senses on the alert. He is to observe the note of the skylark, the scent of the violets, the form of the clouds, the colour of the primroses, the smoothness of the grass, the springiness of the turf. he is to amble along with all the Five Gateways of knowledge wide open, and we know that the mouth is one of them." 

So what's wrong with taking children outdoors to take it all in? The Herbartian answers:

"Interest and knowledge...mutually determine and react upon each other. In view of this, the teacher's first duty is to ascertain the contents of the mind of his pupils, and then to bring within their reach material specially prepared for those minds to react upon. Children can observe only what their apperception masses are prepared to act upon; to all else they are literally blind, deaf, callous."

What do you think Charlotte Mason would say to that? My guess is that she might partially agree, because I don't think her intent in nature walks, or anything else of that sort, was that they should be entirely random. Of course going anywhere is more interesting if you are at least somewhat prepared, if you've been given something ahead of time to look for or look at. Think about an art gallery, Westminster Abbey, a fort, a bird sanctuary. The more real interest and information you bring with you, the more likely it is that you're going to find the visit worthwhile. Think of crowds of children being dragged through museums, with nothing more on their minds than getting a day off school. Of course it's a waste of time. (I'm not so sure about the "specially prepared" material; I think that's where CM and Herbart part company.) You can stare at the night sky with nothing more than the idea that it's very big and that there are a lot of stars, but how much richer your experience would be if you knew a little astronomy. You start to form a relationship with what's out there, make "sense of those first-born affinities."

Back to Herbartian Psychology: Adams then spends several pages on the methods of Sherlock Holmes, and plays a little game with perspective (like those puzzles where the answer is "an elephant on his back in a swimming pool"). What it comes down to, he says, both in what-do-you-see puzzles and in Sherlock Holmes-type stories, is often not observation or even deduction, but specialized knowledge. There is something that the writer or the artist knows, that you don't know, and that makes the whole thing not 100% fair. It's like those maddening Encyclopedia Brown books where the solution is always something like "Encyclopedia knew that those sorts of nickels were not made until 1960, so therefore the dealer was lying."

It helps to be observant, but it also helps to have knowledge, and the Herbartian will say that you can't put knowledge in a mind unless there's already an apperception mass there to stick it to. Charlotte Mason said that it was important to begin with what you know.

Adams ends the chapter with a paragraph that sounds very CMish:

"To cultivate observation, then, is not to train the eye, the ear, the hand, to extreme sensitiveness, but rather to work up well-organized knowledge within the mind itself. If we desire minute observation in a definite direction, we must cultivate special knowledge to correspond. If we wish to encourage general observation, we can only succeed by cultivating wide interests. The reciprocal interaction of interest and knowledge in relation to external facts, is what ought truly to be called observation."

How that well-organized knowledge gets into the mind is another issue, but the point that you have to know something in order to see something or to learn something is well made.

Photos from My Cousin Vinny. 

Part Seven is here.

Mama Squirrel's Library Pile

From the public library, reading and leafing through:

The Map That Changed the World, by Simon Winchester
Why Geology Matters, by Doug Macdougall
The Seashell on the Mountaintop, by Alan Cutler
Eric Sloane's Weather Almanac

How they found Pluto, not to mention Neptune (Book Review)

The Search for Planet X*, by Tony Simon.  Basic Books, 1962.  Issued in paperback by Scholastic, #TX 691.

This is a long-lost treasure for homeschooled students!  "My favorite book as a kid," says one Amazon reviewer.  Another says, "I remember reading this fascinating book, a selection of Scholastic Book Services, when I was hospitalized at age 9. I still remember the nurse coming into the room way after midnight to demand that I turn off the light. I couldn't do it. Planet X had me."

"Planet X" isn't science fiction, but true science writing for kids (roughly upper elementary through middle school).  It's about, first, the search for Neptune; because something was throwing the orbit of Uranus out of whack, and the odds were that the something was a planet.  But after confirming Neptune's existence, astronomers thought there must be something more dragging it out of its normal pattern.  And after years of searching...there was our ninth planet.

Or our ninth planet-that-was.

How did they do it?  Why did they do it?  Who were the key "space detectives?"  (I should be writing copy for the backs of Scholastic books.)  Clyde Tombaugh, of course, gets quite a bit of the story, since he was the astronomer who located Pluto.  (You do know, don't you, that an eleven-year-old Parent's Union School student came up with the name?)  Clyde Tombaugh becomes more than just a name, or the photograph of an old man peering into a telescope that's included in another of our solar system books; in this story, he's a curious, slightly geeky kid who can't get enough of stars and telescopes but can't afford college, but who then lucks into the job of official Planet X-searcher.  One of the reviews says that we don't know what Tombaugh thought of Simon's book, but actually there's a letter from him included as an epilogue.  It starts, "Your saga of the discovery of Pluto is told interestingly and with understanding in this book.  You have caught the spirit of the search for the elusive ninth planet..."  I think that was commendation enough.

Tony Simon pulls out the entire bag of non-fiction writing techniques here:  using images of planet-searching such as looking down at a ballroom floor full of beads, only one of which is moving; making use of fiction techniques such as dialogue; using short paragraphs, but not dumbed-down language.  Those who would like to write children's non-fiction could find this book instructive.

But I think its primary appeal would be to children who can still appreciate the romance of star-searching.  Yes, "Planet X" has been demoted to a dwarf planet; but that doesn't diminish the story of its discovery.  (And the Neptune story is interesting too.)

This would be a great addition to a study of astronomy.  The book is long out of print, but inexpensive copies are still available through online sources.

*The scientists in my family want me to mention that Pluto is no longer "Planet X," first of all because it has a name, but second because it lost its planet status.  So the search for "Planet X" goes on.

Dollygirl's Grade Six: Term 3, Week 8

This is a four-day school week because of Victoria Day.

Tuesday

New Testament: finish Saviour of the World this week

Poetry and The Aeneid: finish “Aeneas Seeks Aid From Evander”

Arithmetic: finish Key to Percents Book Two, page 10

Natural history: continue The Search for Planet X by Tony Simon.  Finish “Off Course Again,” start “Percival Lowell”

Sight Singing

Repetition: work on passage from Matthew 16

History: Augustus Caesar's World, “Of India and the Hindus”

People Pages

French: Lesson 8, "George’s Kite." (Translation of this week's passage: George is very clever. He has made this kite himself. The kite is taller than George. The artist has painted a house, a little dog, a man, the moon, and a bird.) You-tube video: watch “Trotro et le cerf-volant.”

Afternoon work


Wednesday

Natural history: The Search for Planet X, continue “Percival Lowell”

Balance Benders Level 2

History: “Pater Patriae” (very short) and “Buddha and the Kingdom of Truth”

Sight singing

Arithmetic: page 11, Writing a Percent Statement as Two Equal Fractions



Composer study: Handel, Concerto Grosso, Opus 6, No. 10 in D minor.

Geography: Lesson 2 on Devon, “North Devon.” “The combes along the north coast lie between the spurs of Exmoor, which come down to the water’s edge.”

People Pages

French

Thursday

Old Testament: continue Lore Segal's The Book of Adam to Moses

Poetry and The Aeneid: start “The Trojans Besieged.”

Arithmetic: continue previous lesson, page 12

French

Picture study: later pictures of Matthijs Maris

History: “December 25, Year 1”

Repetition

Love's Labour's Lost

Afternoon work

Friday

New Testament: Saviour of the World

Poetry and The Aeneid: finish “The Trojans Besieged.”

Arithmetic: continue previous lesson, page 13

Drawing lesson

Citizenship

People Pages

Singing

Recitations

A package from Hampstead House

We don't get brand-new books all that often.

But I saw some things that might be useful in the last HH catalogue, and I had a credit note for some stuff that had gone out of stock, so I decided to send in an order.

Violet Comes to Stay: this will be a birthday gift for a young relative later this year.

World in a Box: I posted about this earlier today.

Watching Water Birds, by Jim Arnosky.

Mouse Tail Moon--a book of poems, also for a birthday gift.

Stars & Planets: a book with lots of tabs, things to unfold, photos, and a poster in the back. Even The Apprentice thought this was pretty cool.

Photos: Ponytails

Funny squirrelings

Mama Squirrel (reading from Exploring Creation With Astronomy): "That's Venus. Of course, you will know that it's not a star at all. It's a burning hot planet with lava and heat-trapping clouds made of sulfuric acid swirling madly around it."

Young Squirrel: "Sounds like Daddy's sinuses."