Friday, 16 May 2008

Thoughts: Contextual Knowledge

Does everyone see the same thing when they look at the same image?

People should see the same thing if they look at it from the same perspective but it depends if there is also a context. I see a tree and sometimes it is a species I recognize so I can say I see an oak or a beech, but many scenes/images are more complex than that. If I see my grandma in the street then to me that is my grandma, to some she is Doris and to others she is just a little old lady.

This is the problem for education. There are those that would say that the world can be projected as an absolute totally objective truth. Then there are the rest of us who realize that this is an illusion, and that context always plays a part. In biology our models change from the clockwork of Descartes and Laplace to the computer analogy of today. Tomorrow there will be other analogies. So should we ever look for students to be convergent to the teachers? Is there ever a right answer?

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