Not everyone that can add "2 + 2" can do calculus. That calculus is hard
for many people does not mean that "2 + 2" should be considered hard as
well.
Your logical error is more sophisticated than the one in question, but I
doubt your teachers are to blame for your inadequacy, your bad manners, or
your continued inability to read and understand the English language.
Having embarrassed yourself twice, are you going to go for three? Probably.
But I won't read the next one.
-----Original Message-----
From: Pang, Hokkun [mailto:HPang@Yesmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 10:01 AM
To: 'John Hall'; FoRK
Subject: RE: How do you teach fundamental logic to someone that doesn't
grok it?
If you're not too demading of my intellectual adaquacy, then I blame my
inadaquacy on my teachers.
Lets face it, there is nothing new about your lady friend's complaint.
Logic, especially in the symbolic form,
is not easy to learn, otherwise, illiterate programmers like me would have
a tough time making a living.
However, hard to learn doesn't mean typical people don't have a sense of
logic or basic skills in
logical deduction. Your lady friend has only herself to blame for failing
to perform her duties.
On a recent day, I was interviewing CS senior from a top tier school who
claimed to be studying "Theory of Languages"
this semester. So I casually asked him to explain the "Pumping Lemma" to
me. He wisely said his class was about to
cover it the following week so he didn't know it yet. Now that's what I
call a big disappointment.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Hall [mailto:johnhall@evergo.net]
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 12:07 PM
To: Pang, Hokkun; FoRK
Subject: RE: How do you teach fundamental logic to someone that doesn't
grok it?
I think you lack the courtesy expected of polite discourse. You were
offered an opportunity to make a productive comment and declined.
Furthermore, you can't read very well. I didn't say how she handled it,
I was silent on the issue. I said I couldn't imagine how it could be
handled.
Don't project your own intellectual inadequacies on others.
-----Original Message-----
From: Pang, Hokkun [mailto:HPang@Yesmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 7:39 AM
To: 'John Hall'; FoRK
Subject: RE: How do you teach fundamental logic to someone that
doesn't grok it?
I think your lady is a lousy teacher who lacks the heart and the
creativity to teach.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Hall [mailto:johnhall@evergo.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 6:32 PM
To: FoRK
Subject: How do you teach fundamental logic to someone that doesn't
grok it?
I was presented with this problem from a lady that taught logic at
the college level.
About the simplest thing in logic is:
Given: A => B
Given: A
Conclude: ?
What do you do with a student that can't answer that question?
My reactions boiled down to:
a) dumbfounded that someone over the age of 12 who can dress
themselves considers that a hard problem.
b) anyone who can't get that will never get that and can't be taught
logic. Hand them a shovel.
On the other hand, I have seen people that had trouble with:
Given: A => B
Given: B
Conclude: ?
That seemed to be harder to understand, and for someone that misses
such questions I can think of ways to teach them, provided they could get
the first problem right.
Any thoughts?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun May 06 2001 - 08:04:39 PDT