diSessa

Andy diSessa Changing Minds: Computers, Learning and Literacy (2000)

Ch 4. Foundations of Knowledge and Learning

the power and importance of intuitive knowledge

electronics hobby ... the most important formative experience of my life for defining my general intellectual skills and personal style of thinking and acting

LIST OF THINGS THAT HE DID built dozens of radios built an oscilloscope from a kit built audio amplifiers built photoelectric and mechanical burglar alarms built a machine to shock unsuspecting friends built a Geiger counter

Up close, my activities would probably have to be judged, minimally, inefficient. There was a huge redundancy and repetition ...

I remember my disbelief when I was taught "the scientific method" in school. I couldn't empathize with it.

I was designing and building, not really doing science, and I was certainly not focused on the goal of learning science

I was buried deep in material goals and minimally interested in learning for its own sake

I was simply not motivated by friends or what my teachers or parents believed was in my best interests

I built up a rich and flexible intuition about electronic devices

I eventually began to study some of the things for which my hobby accidentally prepared me. I took physics in high school after my hobby days were over. It wasn't that I had already learned physics. That was patently not true, but everything in class made sense in a certain way. Even when a topic didn't make immediate sense, I was still in familiar territory.

I did not know the physics already. Certainly I did not know the words and meanings I was being taught

From the outside, I looked "smart". I learned quickly and more deeply than most. When I got to college, I became famous, if not notorious, among my friends for having a superb intuitive feel for what we were learning in physics. I could guess answers and make good judgments about how things should turn out ... I could think about problems in ways that weren't instructed ...It was a strong intuitive foundation built in electronics play

pp. 66 - 78