Before we start talking about intuitive theories, let’s try to clarify what they are, before entering school a child is not an empty mind, before starting to study the child has already created a series of theories that explain their reality, these are intuitive theories.
But what are these children’s intuitive theories like?of these might be the fact that a child thinks the earth is flat.
- Because they are created by common sense.
- These theories are incorrect or very inaccurate.
- If we want children to really learn what reality is like.
- We must break with intuitive theories and replace them with theories that correctly explain the facts.
- One of the school jobs.
- But does the school take care of that.
- Does it really perform that function?.
Although we have presented intuitive theories from the point of view of childhood, these are formed and exist throughout our lives. Every time an event occurs, whether physical, social, political, that escapes our knowledge, our brain creates a theory that explains it through our common sense Common sense is often wrong or inaccurate in revealing great phenomena, which does not prevent them from being a vital aid in the day to day.
Here we face a problem: our education system plans courses as if students were taxable subjects, for school students are empty glasses that have to be filled with knowledge, but it is not. The student is like a plant that needs to be watered to grow freely.
Let’s first look at why the school considers students to be empty glasses, if we visit a typical classroom we will find between 20 and 30 students sitting in front of the teacher who explains, using a whiteboard, a series of contents that students will have to memorize. to put them to the test. This didactic model highlights the fact that students are only passive subjects of learning: their only function is to listen to the teacher and do as he tells them.
The passive situation of the students makes them not reach a deep understanding of the content, they simply memorize, literally, what the teacher presents to them, so, in this situation, what if a student had an incorrect intuitive theory and did he receive information passively, which would help him break with intuitive theory?The answer is that the student will continue to believe in his intuitive theory taking into account the correct theory, even if they are contradictory.
How is it possible for the student to keep two contradictory theories in his head at the same time?This is because by not gaining a deep understanding of the right theory, the student ignores the contradictions that exist with his intuitive theory. the school environment and the teacher asks, searches memory and responds with the right theory, however, when a problem arises in a real situation, he will resort to his intuitive theory, in which he really believes.
To understand this, we can do a little exercise. I want you to take a moment to think about the following question: if we jump too high while climbing a escalator, what step are we going to fall into: the same one we were in, the previous one or the next?
The intuition tells us that when we jumped, we would stay in the air as long as the ladder continued upwards, so we would fall on the next step, but that is not true. Newton’s law of inertia says that every moving body remains in motion while the resulting force is zero, so would we fall on the same step, as we would keep the movement?speed on the corresponding axis?the ladder during the jump.
If you answered the question correctly, congratulations! If you’re wrong, don’t worry. Problems of this type were presented to newly graduated physics students in a survey conducted by psychologist J. Clement, and 88% of them gave the wrong answer, here’s evidence of how students, while able to perfectly solve complex physics exercises using perfectly the theories they learned during the course, when faced with a question outside the academic framework, use their intuitive theories.
The solution to the predominance of theories that correctly explain reality is to achieve a deep understanding of the facts that distort intuitive theories for the same phenomenon, unfortunately the current educational system is not able to provide legitimate learning of knowledge because it ignores the student as an active agent of his own learning.
To achieve a deep understanding and deny the wrong theories, the class must be a place of debate, where students can expose their theories and, with the help of the teacher, adapt to bring them closer to the correct theory of facts.
The question we need to answer is: how do we turn the classroom into a space for debate?