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Science and engineering, history and everyday life, are a densely interwoven tapestry of stories. Imagine teaching them like that! But... viably teaching the

Science and engineering, history and everyday life, are a densely interwoven tapestry of stories. Imagine teaching them like that! But... viably teaching the tapestry, may require a much lower prevalence of misconception, and lack of insight, among teachers and texts. And creating such content, insightful and correct, is hard. Really really hard. As illustrated by the many newspaper-like "err, no, that's not quite right" errata of the OP story. Which is one reason why sci-hub seems to me so very important (apropos a recent HN discussion). My experience is it's not even close to possible, to write such correct and insightful stories, without extensive use of the primary research literature across multiple fields. Creating such stories is already very poorly incentivized. And an awesome timesink, even by the already daunting standards of writing a book. Open access is increasingly wonderful, but only sci-hub holds at bay, for now, the additional filter of potential authors having to be simultaneously actively affiliated with a research university, and having copious free time. Without sci-hub, we're back to professors emeriti being the primary pool of potential authors. VR/AR is a wonderful medium for storytelling. Perhaps we can use it as an excuse to begin creating wonderful stories. But it seems a nontrivial societal challenge.

koonsolo 6y ago
Funny that you mention this. I'm developing an easy to use RPG creation tool, and it seems to catch on at schools. (The most recent to discover it are the Spanish teachers https://twitter.com/Educeria/status/1271498731544817666 https://twitter.com/Educeria/status/1271498731544817666) For educational games, it are mainly the students themselves that make them (see https://rpgplayground.com/educational-games/ https://rpgplayground.com/educational-games/). But storytelling is indeed the most important part of it all. I think that with the right story and game interactions, you can make a game where the player can only progress by learning something and applying that knowledge. Very interesting indeed, especially since remote learning will become more important in the future.
- mncharity 6y ago
  OT, I wonder if the shift to remote schooling is increasing the use of remote collaboration among students who speak different languages? One might imagine students localizing their game dialog with the help of remote student locals?
grecy 6y ago
> Science and engineering, history and everyday life, are a densely interwoven tapestry of stories. Imagine teaching them like that! That's exactly what First Nations people all around the world have been doing for about 200,000 years!
- mncharity 6y ago
  Oops, interesting. That's an interpretation I didn't anticipate or intend, but can now totally see. Thanks! Usually I mention "interwoven tapestry" and "storytelling" separately. I shouldn't have combined the two. Science and engineering and daily life as tightly interconnected. And separately, storytelling as an educational device that can help with teaching about them. Which I guess still overlaps. Hmm. Maybe a key difference is in one, stories are authoritative, and in the other, the sciences are authoritative, and the stories are educational artifact and subordinate to them. One failure mode in current science education content, is content "stories" that have taken on a life of their own, decoupled from or even conflicting with, the actual science. Hmm. Tapestry of connections vs tapestry of stories? I was thinking more of stories vaguely like "Sticky strings play a large role in cellular microbiology. They stick and unstick at energies barely above thermal noise. Lower energy, would have them shaking apart too easily. Higher, would make unsticking too expensive and slow. So we refrigerate our food, so the bacteria in it slow down. And we cook our food, so bacteria's sticky strings are shaken apart." Determining that one can correctly (I think?) say "slow down", rather than reality and the story being something else, like the speed doesn't change, but below some temperature some activities are turned off, regrettably requires going to primary literature. Because the odds of finding that precise issue, clearly addressed, with any hope of correctness, is elsewhere low.
bsder 6y ago
> But... viably teaching the tapestry, may require a much lower prevalence of misconception, and lack of insight, among teachers and texts. And creating such content, insightful and correct, is hard. Really really hard. This is why people like James Burke ("Connections" and other documentaries) are so important. They can do this. But this takes funding from somewhere. And it's not going to make a profit. But it will make for a better society.
- mncharity 6y ago
  Some years back, I talked with someone from PBS education video, about doing interative development and user testing, as with software. Rather creating the finished video and tossing it over the wall to be seen, and even then only rarely tested. Their comment was they'd love to do that, and would... just as soon as someone was willing to pay for it.
Jedd 6y ago
> viably teaching the tapestry, may require a much lower prevalence of misconception, and lack of insight, among teachers and texts. I think in most western countries, the vast majority of actual teachers get very little say in what's taught - the content or the sequence - or how the streams are sub-divided. The massive inertia of the education sector is not the fault of the people standing in front of the students.
- mncharity 6y ago
  Ah, ok, I was attempting a different thought. "Teaching the tapestry" seems to require atypically few misconceptions and high degree of insight. But chemistry content for example, is so bad, that teachers are steeped in misconceptions and lack insight. So not only is there, as you say, inertia, but we seemingly lack both content and staffing at present to pull off a tapestry approach. Maybe. There are bits of scattered evidence that with really good content, you can address both students and their teachers at the same time. Maybe...

koonsolo 6y ago

Funny that you mention this. I'm developing an easy to use RPG creation tool, and it seems to catch on at schools. (The most recent to discover it are the Spanish teachers https://twitter.com/Educeria/status/1271498731544817666 https://twitter.com/Educeria/status/1271498731544817666) For educational games, it are mainly the students themselves that make them (see https://rpgplayground.com/educational-games/ https://rpgplayground.com/educational-games/). But storytelling is indeed the most important part of it all. I think that with the right story and game interactions, you can make a game where the player can only progress by learning something and applying that knowledge. Very interesting indeed, especially since remote learning will become more important in the future.

mncharity 6y ago
OT, I wonder if the shift to remote schooling is increasing the use of remote collaboration among students who speak different languages? One might imagine students localizing their game dialog with the help of remote student locals?

grecy 6y ago

> Science and engineering, history and everyday life, are a densely interwoven tapestry of stories. Imagine teaching them like that! That's exactly what First Nations people all around the world have been doing for about 200,000 years!

mncharity 6y ago
Oops, interesting. That's an interpretation I didn't anticipate or intend, but can now totally see. Thanks! Usually I mention "interwoven tapestry" and "storytelling" separately. I shouldn't have combined the two. Science and engineering and daily life as tightly interconnected. And separately, storytelling as an educational device that can help with teaching about them. Which I guess still overlaps. Hmm. Maybe a key difference is in one, stories are authoritative, and in the other, the sciences are authoritative, and the stories are educational artifact and subordinate to them. One failure mode in current science education content, is content "stories" that have taken on a life of their own, decoupled from or even conflicting with, the actual science. Hmm. Tapestry of connections vs tapestry of stories? I was thinking more of stories vaguely like "Sticky strings play a large role in cellular microbiology. They stick and unstick at energies barely above thermal noise. Lower energy, would have them shaking apart too easily. Higher, would make unsticking too expensive and slow. So we refrigerate our food, so the bacteria in it slow down. And we cook our food, so bacteria's sticky strings are shaken apart." Determining that one can correctly (I think?) say "slow down", rather than reality and the story being something else, like the speed doesn't change, but below some temperature some activities are turned off, regrettably requires going to primary literature. Because the odds of finding that precise issue, clearly addressed, with any hope of correctness, is elsewhere low.

bsder 6y ago

> But... viably teaching the tapestry, may require a much lower prevalence of misconception, and lack of insight, among teachers and texts. And creating such content, insightful and correct, is hard. Really really hard. This is why people like James Burke ("Connections" and other documentaries) are so important. They can do this. But this takes funding from somewhere. And it's not going to make a profit. But it will make for a better society.

mncharity 6y ago
Some years back, I talked with someone from PBS education video, about doing interative development and user testing, as with software. Rather creating the finished video and tossing it over the wall to be seen, and even then only rarely tested. Their comment was they'd love to do that, and would... just as soon as someone was willing to pay for it.

Jedd 6y ago

> viably teaching the tapestry, may require a much lower prevalence of misconception, and lack of insight, among teachers and texts. I think in most western countries, the vast majority of actual teachers get very little say in what's taught - the content or the sequence - or how the streams are sub-divided. The massive inertia of the education sector is not the fault of the people standing in front of the students.

mncharity 6y ago
Ah, ok, I was attempting a different thought. "Teaching the tapestry" seems to require atypically few misconceptions and high degree of insight. But chemistry content for example, is so bad, that teachers are steeped in misconceptions and lack insight. So not only is there, as you say, inertia, but we seemingly lack both content and staffing at present to pull off a tapestry approach. Maybe. There are bits of scattered evidence that with really good content, you can address both students and their teachers at the same time. Maybe...