This-essay is a7910121.htm which is available at the
web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom.
Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay
By-Months By-Years By-Words
Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One
==========================================================
%DEPERSONALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE 791012
When personal discoveries are depersonalized they are
presented as purely objective knowledge, theory, fact,
etc. Students find it difficult to perceive the
motivation for considering such knowledge. Objectified
knowledge appears so authoritarian as to be personally not
interesting. Depersonalized knowledge seems arbitrary,
not something which is vested with personal interest by
virtue of the personality of the discoverer. To divorce
the history of scientific knowledge from the content of
scientific knowledge thus makes science appear
authoritarian---in violation of its essential experimental
spirit which undermines personal authority as the ground
for acceptance of assertions and beliefs. Students will
better follow a line of reasoning if they know the spirit
in which it originated, if they are approached with a
prelude which makes clear the context in which the line of
reasoning was vested with personal interest and history.
To teach physics well it is necessary to help
students acquire the personal spirit in which the
discoveries of physics were made. It is not enough for
students to learn conclusions. The spirit of physics is
more to be found in the spirit of personal discovery and
in the motivation and feelings of the physicists who made
the initial discoveries. The feelings and intuitions
which motivated discovery are an essential context in
which to learn both the spirit and content physics. To
eliminate the personal aspect of the discovery is to make
it difficult for personal students to identify with the
discovery and so difficult for personal students to learn
the content which was discovered.
Physics teachers are often persons who have become so
specialized by the programs of graduate physics
departments that as teachers they are very impersonal.
They have little interest in their students as persons and
little interest in the personal aspects of the history of
scientific discovery. As a result they present physics as
an impersonal collection of facts, laws, theories, etc.
which students are to be internalized in for authorization
reasons---the teacher says they are valuable. Such
depersonalization undercuts the motivation of all
personally oriented students, leaving only depersonalized
students to become the next generation of physics
teachers.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty
(On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)
==========================================================
Lines beginning with a percent sign are KEYWORDS for use
in ESSAY-System Searches. Their terminal digits are dates
of writing in the format @yymmdd#, where @ = a means 99,
@ = b means 20, and # = is a within-date essay-count.
Links to date-adjacent essays are near page top & bottom.
Find the following links by clicking on CENTER when CENTER
near the top or bottom of a web page of essayz.com
1. Go to HOME PAGE of essayz.com
2. Find brief-essays via keywords
3. Find brief-essay about ADDICTION
4. Search-Helps related to ABOVE-LINK
5. GoTo Action & Information Center
6. Find Regular-Essays via Year/Month
7. Find Regular-Essays via Word-Starts
8. Find Regular-Essay about LOVE
This-essay is a7910121.htm which is available at the
web-site www.essayz.com. These 5 lines echo top lines.
Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay
By-Months By-Years By-Words
Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One