Enrica Giordano
Dipartimento di Scienze
umane per la Formazione
Children understanding the
world around them
Milano Bicocca 15 maggio 2007
Harris question: When children are
given information that they cannot
check for themselves, do they accept
information from any informant?
My questions:
 When children (and adults) are given
information (apparently) contrasting what
they can check for themselves……
 How children (and adults) construct
understanding (models) of the world
around them
The “resonant cognitive model”
(P. Guidoni)
The model is centered on the metaphorical
notion of understanding as cognitive
resonance between different dimensions:
experience, languages, knowledge
at individual as well as at socio-cultural
level.
In physics, resonance is the tendency of a
system to absorb more oscillatory energy
when the frequency of the oscillations
matches the system's natural frequency of
vibration (its resonant frequency) than it
does at other frequencies.
Pushing a seat for swinging
A pole vibrating when the bus stops and
the engine idles
working on sun shadows: is the sun moving?
Kinderdargen
kids looking at
their shadows
Teachers working on
shadows in astronomy
“Night is earth’s shadow”
“the sun
moved and,
to me, the
idea moved”
(4 years)
Where is Norway?
Teachers (and media) give information
through words, pictures, drawings, models.
They can induce wrong (contrasting
evidence) ideas:
• The geographic North is always “up”?
• At noon the sun is “above our head”?
• The “local” tilt of the Earth’s axis is like
the globe orientation?
• Moon phases are caused by Earth’s
shadow?
• …………………………………
Young children and motion
From everyday life to (scientific)
understanding
Why, when I’m jumping, the wall
is moving? (Laura, 4 years)
I’m sitting on a train traveling
from Milan to Rome. I’m moving?
What do we mean by “moving”?
Observation vs interpretation
We always invent, devise, things
that we cannot see, to explain
things that we see
(students 9-10 years old)
• From the “permanent object” to the molecular models
of matter we construct models, our understanding is
an “understanding by models
• “Our senses don’t describe the worl, they question it”
I nostri sensi non descrivono il mondo, lo interrogano”,
Boncinelli in (Boncinelli & Bottazzini, 2000).
• “Understanding is imagination”
Capire è immaginare, legame tra concettualizzazione e
esperienze percettivo motorie
Gallese, V. e Lakoff G. (2005). ‘The Brain’s Concepts: the Role of the SensoryMotor System in Conceptual Knowledge’, Cognitive Neuropsychology, 21,
Doing and talking
“Il discorso é l’ombra dall’azione” (Democrito)
The talk is the shadow of action
"Se non mi vengono le parole non riesco neanche a
pensare" (Marco, classe IV)
If I don’t get the words I cannot think (M. 9 y)
Una buona scienza non è niente di più che una lingua ben
fatta.
A good science is nothing more that a well done
language
“Une science bien traitée n’est que une langue bien faite”,
De Condillac in DeMauro, Scienza e lingua,
www.quipo.it/netpaper/demauro1996.html