Week 2 Group 2 - Strange Statements: Logic

Hi, after a few weeks, i keep ahead slowly with the exercises:

Here the next three problem solving of the Logic Topic i am related with.

Apples puzzle:

Giulia with 5 years and a half was very natural in her answers, she founded many reasons about the three apples and two dads and two sons sharing the apples, she not even felt any challenge, she enjoy it. she likes to explore and to imagine several circumstances, she loved to express her images.

Ela approached the question as something really easy, but as soon as she felt the complexity of it, she begun to get tired and she cried. after several minutes ( i gave her time, as she needed) and later on she said i dont know, it is so difficult.

After they did a painting, and there Giulia for the first time figured out about the three apples and 4 persons can not share a whole apple, jajaja that was the best part¡

Heap puzzle:

Here it was very very interesting how for Giulia (with her character and her complexion and her age)

more pieces of chestnuts togheter reflect a heap.

While for Ela (with her character and her age and her complexion) less pieces of chestnuts reflect a heap.

Giulia has a round body, while Ela has an elongate body.

Elevator puzzle:

I worked this exercise with Ela, Giulia was busy.

Ela solve the problem very quick, so i decided to add a couple of more challenges.

Ela built a building with five floors using wood blocks, first with vertical, the building was unstable and felt down, afterward she built a building with horizontal where a car transported people.

she counted how many times the car went and came while carrying all those who lived in the building.

so, i asked:

What does the car would have to do to go back and forth 10 times?

She could not arrive...

will keep going

cheers

Prior to teaching this i had predicted everything would be a challenge, since my daughters are receiving a waldorf education, this pedagogy take care of the intelectual process, not to force it , not to develope it prematurely( teaching them to solve problems since the moral and the beauty with natural materials and of course no machines), but i wanted to try and see how does this program worked out with them. As i sospected my 5 years old daughter did not understud the fallacy of the dinosaur syllogism, she answered this way: We have a dinosaur heart

We used to be dinosaurs and now we are human beings. Yes, i have a dinosaur brain. Yes, i am i kid and i have a brain, also have a dinosaur brain.

She lives on a magical world, where everything an adult say is true.

How can i take her to the intelectual world? It is painful.

For my 8 years old daughter was a litlle diferent, but same as te other girl she belives in everything i say to her, she needed long time to understand the fallacy. I had to stay for long time trying to express her many time the other one of the statements was false and the other true.

(As we are living now on a little town (since this October) and unfortunatly there is only one kid living near and that kid was on holidays for the last two weeks, i could not invited any one else, so we had to work us tree)

These are her answers:

Dinosaur use to have a brain, we have a brain but is different than the dinosaurs brain. We both are earth´sons. Yes, i am a kid and have a brain.

After this dialogue G painted and E wrote a syllogism:

If i have an ugly plant therefore i am ugly because i like plants

If i have a beautiful plant therefore i am beautiful because i like plants.

In the first exercise, " I never say the truth " Do i say the truth now?

Both of them took the question as a moral inquiry. Moral effect. They were deeply touched by the question.

E spent long time reflectioning on it and after she said, people say the true and lire as well.

G said if i lire i wont have friends, you mom wont belive me any more.

In the exercise " the mistery book"

They were very interested on the magic of the book. They wanted to hide and see the book when turning in to the chinesse book¡

I will keep exploring the statements, will see what next...

Prior to teaching this I had predicted that since my students were on the older end of the age range they would all respond to each problem and probably get the solution, if there was one. After going through these activities I was a little pleasantly surprised at how easily and comfortably they had all been in working this. There were differences that were in keeping with the personalities and thinking of different students. The same student who was often first to answer was also often the same student who was the first to seem exasperated or ready to give up on other tasks. This is congruent with what I know about her. She is more comfortable with tasks that are not open ended and she likes to have a structure, algorithm or outline to follow. Interestingly she also was the one who looked for a technical loop hole - "technically, your ancestry might come from a dinosaur." or regarding what all people do simultaneously, "well some people are dead."

On the whole this was a fun lesson to lead and share with the children. They seemed to find something empowering about owning the logic or solving the puzzles. Strange statements are a fact of life for young people and seemed not as strange to them as perhaps to some adults. While this lesson was presented in a way that was very much in keeping with how I already teach it did help me to rethink how little of this type of thinking is incorporated into our larger curriculum.

There was one experience that reminded me to give students a chance to explain their thinking and make sure I hear what they are saying and not what I think they are saying. I thought that someone had very quickly solved the 3 apples puzzle "if you area son you could still be a dad." As I listened to other students continue to wrestle with the puzzle it came out that this student was not all the way there yet. He thought there were only 2 people who were father/son and therefore there was an apple left over. As we reread the scenario and emphasized that all the apples were used then this came out and the student was stumped until a peer helped move things along drawing a diagram and putting themselves in the picture. Given this reference to people they knew the answer came quickly.

Their definition of heap I found interesting "4 and over."

They quickly worked through the coffee spoon - "was there a stopper between, like a lid?", "did you take it back out?" (we stopped to wrestle with would it matter if I had or not), "Was the coffee like that powdered stuff?"

What do all people on earth do simultaneously? "breathe - no wait not exactly at the same time." "live", "move because you have to move for your heart and to breathe - it might not be the same movements but everybody is moving", "well, some people are dead."

I always work on trying to get students to develop metacognition and become comfortable explaining their thinking or defending an answer. This task added to that a statement analysis and the role of questioning in working through a problem.