Needless to say, life has been busy. I feel a bit rotten saying that, as I'm certain that many in our program have much more going on and are keeping up much better than I am, but it doesn't change the fact that I often feel overwhelmed. The trick, which I haven't quite figured out entirely, is how to turn those feelings of stress into the necessary impetus to relieve the stress. I think recognizing the need to do so is an important first step, and I understand my goals well enough, but the steps along the way are a bit fuzzy.

I suppose I should give Papert the necessary credit for inspiring me back to writing this post. He puts forward and argues for a number of ideas that resonated with my own way of thinking, and the minor revelations that resulted will be the subject of the rest of this post, now that I'm mostly finished whining.

The concept of a science of "mathetics" is one that I agreed with the moment I read it. I was reminded of the reverse of a conversation I had with my Psycholinguistics professor... We had been discussing the acquisition of language in class, and I happened to go home that evening to find my roommates playing with speech recognition software on their computers. I immediately noticed that they were adopting a unique tone and speaking style when talking to the computer. It reminded me of the way people speak to babies, and was particularly interesting in that they didn't have to discuss or even really plan this speaking style... it came mostly naturally, as they realized that the reasonably primitive software was struggling to understand them. I brought this experience back to my professor, and asked if we weren't missing half of the picture when only discussing the learning of language... what about the innate tendency to teach language? This is essentially Papert's suggestion in reverse, though it's important to note that our class discussions about language learning weren't anywhere near what he's proposing in mathetics.

Mathetics appeals to me personally because I've long recognized some degree of skill in learning as an asset to my daily life. Unfortunately, I've tended to use this asset for less than productive means... specifically, I spent much more of my high school and college careers bathed in the light of my latest game than I should have been able to get away with. One concern, though, is that my tendency to slide through schooling may have been much less related to my ability to learn than my ability to take tests well. There is an undeniable bias towards the particular set of problem solving strategies often called "test-taking skills", and those who have obtained these skills have to do less work for the same rewards. The crux of the issue is whether tests are good measures of learning regardless of one's testing aptitude... and I have to strongly doubt that most (if any) tests really do measure learning well for anyone.

As I sit here thinking about all of this, I set my changing ideas about learning alongside my growing desire to go into teaching after this program, and remember a passage from Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". While I don't remember the exact passage or even the context, I remember him mentioning at one point in his time as a college professor that he was generally giving the worst grades to the students who were most like him. I strongly feel like the ways I see myself teaching based on what I have learned would generally make trouble for the good test-takers. However, I'm not sure if this is something that troubles me in any real way... so long as I believe that what currently passes for testing is not a sufficient measure of learning, I would be doing a disservice to all students by relying on it.