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

From: John Hall (johnhall@evergo.net)
Date: Fri May 04 2001 - 09:07:23 PDT


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?



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