[ExI] toys rewiring kids' brains

[Ben (B.K.) DeLong]

Speaking of math and rewiring brains, I've always been a bit of an odd
duck when it comes to dealing with numbers. I'd be curious what fellow
H+/Extropians think or have experienced -

 In secondary school, I struggled with basic math, in HS I barely made
it through algebra. I flunked Calc twice, logic once and both intro
CompSci courses in college. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Information
Technology and taught a grad seminar for compsci on Professional Web
Design (HTML + CSS). Semantic languages give me little issue as I've
co-authored two books on them and technical edited many more in the
late 90s.

I have a very hard time reading music but aurally, I pickup a melody
near instantly and can repeat it back like a parrot (much to the
annoyance of the fiddle teacher I had for a year in 8th grade). I
never made the All-State choir but squeaked into the Western District
honors chorus because of poor sight-reading yet I would listen to my
choir teacher sing the bass line of any tune once - maybe twice and I
had it. I have almost perfect rhythm as well as sense of pitch.

Directionally, I sometimes get confused as well. I'm not sure if this
is a Systematizing thing or not but I have gotten in the habit over
the years of carefully planning out the routes of any new place I will
be traveling by car, making sure I know the route and either printing
out the Google map or using GPS as I can go out of a parking garage I
just walked into, get my car and even though I should know where the
exit is I'm getting onto since I walked right past it to get into the
garage...I have no clue where I am when I drive out. I am a frequent
"where did I park the car" person unless I deliberately remember.

So....long way of saying have people started looking more into,
diagnosing, and creating treatment or workarounds for Dyscalculia and
ancillary dysfunctions to the degree that they have Dyslexia? I am
realizing if I had the proficiency for math that I have been lacking
or as long as I realize I've had some of these issues, the programming
and problem solving I might have been able to do might have allowed me
to create some phenomenal projects. Of course, but would I have lost
the overly-high intuition and empathy? I wonder...how much would
"fixing" one thing lead to the loss of something else unless properly
monitored?

Is attempting to identify this built into secondary school learning
disability screening in the present day ? Has anyone else had
experiences like this or know someone who has?

Food for thought as I have stumbled across dyscalculia and so many of
these traits that made up my life these past couple decades.

Curious for feedback and thoughts from the list.

On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> On 2012-12-26 17:37, spike wrote:
>>>
>>> ...As for rewiring children's brains, that is a topic that might be worth
>>
>> looking at. What mental skills can we teach the little ones? Maybe we
>> should
>> introduce them to cognitive biases or inductive proofs early?
>> Teach them memory arts? -- Anders Sandberg
>>
>> I am working with Isaac on math skills.  He mastered the entire elementary
>> school arithmetic curriculum (he is currently in the middle of his first
>> grade year.)  So last week I got him a pre-algebra book.  He loves it.
>> Anders, Isaac has fond memories of your visits.  {8-]  That boy has a
>> bright
>> future indeed.
>
>
> When my niece told us that she had been taught the two's multiplication
> table and proudly rattled it off her dad (being a computer engineer) said:
> "Yes, but the *real* table for two is 2,4,8,16,32,64,...!"
>
> At least hinting that there are things beyond +-*/ is useful, as well as
> telling kids about commutativity and inverses. Symmetry is also good to know
> about.
>
> I am also happy with her engineering in Minecraft. Kids should build
> railways and water slides. And it is less messy to do it there than in the
> garden.
>
>
> Another domain that might be good to tell kids about is mental techniques:
> just knowing that there are tricks to calm down or control one's emotions is
> useful.
>
>
> --
> Anders Sandberg
> Future of Humanity Institute
> Oxford University
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-- 
Ben DeLong (K3GRN)
bkdelong at pobox.com
+1.617.797.8471

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkdelong    CV

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