Quote 1:
“So factual knowledge in long-term memory allows chunking, and chunking increases space in working memory” (page 34).
Earlier in the semester our class talked about how people can easily learn around 7 chunks of information. Similarly when reading this chapter I found a quote that talked about chunking. In this case, the author was mentioning how we chunk certain information together that can be stored in the long-term memory for later use. That way we can use these chunks to constantly keep building upon them to learn more and more. I think this idea of chunking is very important to consider with children and how they learn. Learning in a process that grows upon previous knowledge and it starts with us chunking pieces of information together. Specifically in the first years of reading a child must first learn the ABCs. Then they must learn how to chunk those letters into words and then to chunk those words into sentences. The idea of chunking is something that is so essential to the growth ones of education.
Quote 2:
“Because knowing things makes it easier to learn new things, the gap between privileged and underprivileged kids widens” (page 38).
This quote really stuck out to me because privileged and underprivileged kids can sometimes lead to certain children being at different learning levels. Kids who are privileged enough to be able to go to local libraries or have programs that expose themselves to certain situations are at an advantage than other children. These advantages give these privileged children opportunities to learn and know things that other kids don’t get the opportunity to experience. It’s easier for kids to take important past experiences to be able to build upon new ideas. When children don’t all have equal access to educational opportunities it’s our responsibility as teachers to help these kids get these opportunities as much as possible. It’s so important to comprehend where kids are coming from and how that may impact their learning.
Quote 3:
“I hope you are now persuaded that Einstein was wrong. Knowledge is more important, because it’s a prerequisite for imagination” (page 46).
Knowledge can be power for a lot of people, it’s important to understand that our creativity comes from knowledge. Knowledge comes from past experiences like reading books or doing math equations. Specifically that knowledge is used to give us power to imagine new ideas and be creative. It’s essential that we have some type of base knowledge to do anything and that comes along with having important learning experiences in school. Even learning a small detail in a math problem can make us so much more knowledgeable than before. Of course Einstein is right that knowledge isn’t everything and the chapter covers that part too. If we repeatedly use numbers and facts that we learn throughout our life we won’t be able to produce new and cool ideas. Therefore, it’s important for us to develop kid’s knowledge as much as we can but still promote creativity and imagination.
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