RE: How do you teach fundamental logic to someone that doesn't gr ok it?

From: Pang, Hokkun (HPang@Yesmail.com)
Date: Fri May 04 2001 - 07:38:34 PDT


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?



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