I'll respond to my own question in hopes of getting others to reflect on this issue and comment as well.
Yes, my adopted culture affects how I think and how I write. In order to succeed through US college courses and an eventual Masters, I had to swim or sink. To swim, I had to follow sequential reasoning. I had to find the center point, the main idea. I had to develop details around those. When I got into research, those skills really helped me please my instructors. I was astonished that it took so little to please them when I was raised in schools that required and valued creativity over formatting. I was really surprised to find out that I was smart when, previously, I figured that my innovative approaches were stupid in this country. How's that? Comments, anyone?
I hate to keep addressing my own concerns. I need help! Don't you? Leecy
I do want to share a photo I took regarding thought pattern that are part of our various cultures.
I will email it to you because I could not upload it here. If you think it might be of interest to others, please, post it for me.
The article itself is as old as the hills. However, the diagrams in it are so very helpful. They provide a visual that supports an explanation of the way writing and speaking is structured.
Spanish speakers are often said to be illogical, to go off on tangents, to be incapable of understanding coherence. I used to show the diagrams to my students. They are a great teaching tool.
Sorry to ask this of you. I've got to quit here and go grade for a couple of hours!
Wonderful, Vicky, and thanks for taking the time to comment here. We cannot add attachments in these forums; however, I will post it online and enter the image link. Thanks. Leecy
In the technology group, there is a discussion going on about why using technology creates fear in many people. Your comment regarding the institutional stress on sequential reasoning points out one of the major causes of this fear. Using today's technology requires a great deal of intuitive, non-sequential reasoning. Over-reliance on sequential methods can actually be counter productive, and I've seen "sequential reasoners" go into panic mode when forced to go into the scary world of a completely unstructured reality.
Bringing this back to the topic of this thread, people from cultures that value non-sequential reasoning may be intellectually better qualified for a 21st century economic environment than those who have had sequential reasoning drilled into them by the educational system.
And having had the unpleasing experience of trying to read publications produced by people who were technically brilliant but incapable of coherent writing, there is a need for people to think both sequentially and non-sequentially as circumstances require.
As an afterthought, Vicky's chart may also help explain why tech companies say they can't find qualified graduates from American schools and need to hire people from other countries. The ability of people from other cultures to think non-sequentially may make them better qualified for these kinds of jobs than those who have been trained to think only sequentially.
The way I am using sequential vs non-sequential reasoning is probably analogous to left-brain vs. right-brain reasoning. With strict sequential reasoning, you have a series of steps, and you complete one step before going to the next. With strict non-sequential reasoning, you have a continually evolving big picture in your mind and the process for implementing that vision is in flux as well.
The waterfall model of software development (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model) was in the back of my mind as I was writing my previous comment. Sequential methodologies and thought processes that worked well enough when computers were simply replacing people in an established sequential process quickly lead to expensive disasters when applied to projects where the requirements are being discovered at the same time they are being implemented. The same issues occur in any industry that involves new product development.
This also ties in to several other discussions in this forum, such as formal vs. non-formal instruction, the 5-paragraph essay, competence-based learning, and so on. When you spend many years as a child in a structure in which you first begin in Kindergarten (or pre-school); move to first grade, finish that; then second, third, fourth . . . college, grad school; your mind is conditioned to view and try to structure reality in those terms. As I mentioned elsewhere, this may actually be mis-preparing people for the world that awaits them after school.
I want to dwell on what non-sequential reasoning is, and also comment on differences in what I would call cultural thinking.
I have always thought that reasoning is conducted using either a logically deductive or inductive process, as you have described it -- a sequence, of connected steps. Some would probably argue that this (Western way of thinking) is "thinking". I wouldn't. I see many useful, creative and important ways of thinking that are not reasoning. Many years ago Edward DeBono described a process of "lateral thinking." We have a process of unconventional, creative, unexpected thinking with new and fresh perspectives that is (too) often described as "thinking outside the box". We have visual thinking that progresses with pictures, not words. We have free-association thinking that also sometimes produces important results. Scientists, who value sequential reasoning, especially for proving theories, will often say that the development of theories uses a different, more creative thinking process, one that often involves steeping oneself in observation, the details of phenomena, and then taking a break, experiencing something completely different from the hard, close observations. My favorite example is Niels Bohr, whom my high school chemistry teacher (perhaps mistakenly) said developed the charge cloud model of chemistry while staring into a glass of beer and watching the bubbles rise. Whether true or not, this example, and many other examples of scientific discovery, depend not on reasoning but instead on insight, creativity, metaphorical, and other kinds of thinking.
If you will bear with me for a long example, there may be other kinds of sequential reasoning which we may not experience in Western culture because our sequence of logic stops where in other cultures it may not. Many years ago, I lived in Liberia, West Africa. In up-country Liberia, one day I came upon a Liberian friend who I had not seen in many months. As is customary in many African cultures, when people greet each other, I asked not only about how he was, but also about members of his family whom I knew. I specifically asked about his sister whom, he sadly reported, had died only a few weeks before. I asked if she had been ill. He replied that she had been. I asked if his family had sought out traditional care, or care in a Western clinic or hospital for her. He said both traditional and Western care, and that she had been in the Lutheran Hospital, then one of the best in the country. I asked what she had died from. He answered that they didn't know, which surprised me. I asked if he had talked with her doctor about her illness, and he said he had, and that the doctor said she had cancer. I nodded, but was also puzzled. After a moment I asked, "but you said you didn't know the cause of her death." He agreed. I couldn't figure out what the communication problem was. The cause was cancer. Couldn't he understand that, I wondered? Finally, I had an inspiration. I asked, "If you did know the cause, what would you know that you don't know now?" He quickly replied, "We would know who gave her the cancer." In his traditional culture, bad events are brought about by people who do bad things.
Many years later, as I lost friends and family members to cancer, and to other diseases caused by smoking, it dawned on me that what many would assume was a "primitive" way of thinking was a different way of thinking, one that offered Western culture some important insights. Some people would argue that cancer, and several other diseases, are the result of environmental causes resulting from human-made activities. If so, my satisfaction with "cancer" as the cause of my friend's sister's death perhaps was superficial. Pushing that further to "Who gave her the cancer?" or a variation on that question, "why did _she_ get cancer when others in the family or village did not?" may be a beneficial way of thinking about the causes of some diseases. I am not sure what to call this way of thinking. Some might say it is not "scientific" but it raises an important cultural question about reasoning. In a given culture, when do the questions end -- when are people satisfied that they have the answer, when in another culture they are not satisfied and push further for answers?
David, your comments touched a many good perspectives, any of which could launch a wonderful discussion.
People think, no matter what. Whether that thinking is processed through reasoning, whether deductive or inductive, probably defines how learners absorb and transmit information, especially academic information and knowledge in the US.
As I noted in another thread,I believe (there I go thinking again!) that we don't see the world as it is; we see it as we are, and, I might add, when others don't project back in our ways, we throw up our hands and, often, walk away. Your example is a delightful description of that although, thankfully, you didn't walk away! I would take your friend's comment as touching on what some would call spiritual: where does it all begin? What think? Leecy
Robert, thanks for the comments. When it comes to technology, I'm an avid, maybe an addicted, user; however, I'm not a techie, and the development process to me represents magic! I watch how technology works, and am amazed at the human brains that can make all of those connections work so that outcomes and predictable and universally applied. I bow to digital intelligence although, as per David's comments, I should bow to the human intelligence that created the digital reasoning! :) Leecy
Robert, you make excellent points. I really had not considered that aspect in the workplace and in digital instruction! I know you have your own take in response to David's question.
I like to think of the characteristic (linear vs. nonlinear) as representing the conflict that occurs in public schools between inductive (public schools) and deductive reasoning. Inductive instruction takes pieces of concepts (fractions, grammar) and drills those pieces which students then must apply to their lives or to problem solving. Instead, deductive reasoning grasps the whole (the story not its pieces) with little interest in analyzing every part. Another way to describe the view might be to use the term "holistic" and "analytic."
Among traditional Native Americans, for example, many little girls grow up observing adults produce beautiful rugs. When it is their turn to create a rug, they often create perfectly measured dimensions with no concept of inches and decimals. Leecy
Comments
I'll respond to my own question in hopes of getting others to reflect on this issue and comment as well.
Yes, my adopted culture affects how I think and how I write. In order to succeed through US college courses and an eventual Masters, I had to swim or sink. To swim, I had to follow sequential reasoning. I had to find the center point, the main idea. I had to develop details around those. When I got into research, those skills really helped me please my instructors. I was astonished that it took so little to please them when I was raised in schools that required and valued creativity over formatting. I was really surprised to find out that I was smart when, previously, I figured that my innovative approaches were stupid in this country. How's that? Comments, anyone?
I hate to keep addressing my own concerns. I need help! Don't you? Leecy
Leecy,
I do want to share a photo I took regarding thought pattern that are part of our various cultures.
I will email it to you because I could not upload it here. If you think it might be of interest to others, please, post it for me.
The article itself is as old as the hills. However, the diagrams in it are so very helpful. They provide a visual that supports an explanation of the way writing and speaking is structured.
Spanish speakers are often said to be illogical, to go off on tangents, to be incapable of understanding coherence. I used to show the diagrams to my students. They are a great teaching tool.
Sorry to ask this of you. I've got to quit here and go grade for a couple of hours!
Thanks a million,
Vicky
Wonderful, Vicky, and thanks for taking the time to comment here. We cannot add attachments in these forums; however, I will post it online and enter the image link. Thanks. Leecy
Kaplan's book online: http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~djohnson/6750/kaplan.pdf
Leecy,
In the technology group, there is a discussion going on about why using technology creates fear in many people. Your comment regarding the institutional stress on sequential reasoning points out one of the major causes of this fear. Using today's technology requires a great deal of intuitive, non-sequential reasoning. Over-reliance on sequential methods can actually be counter productive, and I've seen "sequential reasoners" go into panic mode when forced to go into the scary world of a completely unstructured reality.
Bringing this back to the topic of this thread, people from cultures that value non-sequential reasoning may be intellectually better qualified for a 21st century economic environment than those who have had sequential reasoning drilled into them by the educational system.
And having had the unpleasing experience of trying to read publications produced by people who were technically brilliant but incapable of coherent writing, there is a need for people to think both sequentially and non-sequentially as circumstances require.
As an afterthought, Vicky's chart may also help explain why tech companies say they can't find qualified graduates from American schools and need to hire people from other countries. The ability of people from other cultures to think non-sequentially may make them better qualified for these kinds of jobs than those who have been trained to think only sequentially.
Robert,
Could you explain what non-sequential reasoning is, and perhaps give a few examples?
Thanks,
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
The way I am using sequential vs non-sequential reasoning is probably analogous to left-brain vs. right-brain reasoning. With strict sequential reasoning, you have a series of steps, and you complete one step before going to the next. With strict non-sequential reasoning, you have a continually evolving big picture in your mind and the process for implementing that vision is in flux as well.
The waterfall model of software development (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model) was in the back of my mind as I was writing my previous comment. Sequential methodologies and thought processes that worked well enough when computers were simply replacing people in an established sequential process quickly lead to expensive disasters when applied to projects where the requirements are being discovered at the same time they are being implemented. The same issues occur in any industry that involves new product development.
This also ties in to several other discussions in this forum, such as formal vs. non-formal instruction, the 5-paragraph essay, competence-based learning, and so on. When you spend many years as a child in a structure in which you first begin in Kindergarten (or pre-school); move to first grade, finish that; then second, third, fourth . . . college, grad school; your mind is conditioned to view and try to structure reality in those terms. As I mentioned elsewhere, this may actually be mis-preparing people for the world that awaits them after school.
Robert, and others,
I want to dwell on what non-sequential reasoning is, and also comment on differences in what I would call cultural thinking.
I have always thought that reasoning is conducted using either a logically deductive or inductive process, as you have described it -- a sequence, of connected steps. Some would probably argue that this (Western way of thinking) is "thinking". I wouldn't. I see many useful, creative and important ways of thinking that are not reasoning. Many years ago Edward DeBono described a process of "lateral thinking." We have a process of unconventional, creative, unexpected thinking with new and fresh perspectives that is (too) often described as "thinking outside the box". We have visual thinking that progresses with pictures, not words. We have free-association thinking that also sometimes produces important results. Scientists, who value sequential reasoning, especially for proving theories, will often say that the development of theories uses a different, more creative thinking process, one that often involves steeping oneself in observation, the details of phenomena, and then taking a break, experiencing something completely different from the hard, close observations. My favorite example is Niels Bohr, whom my high school chemistry teacher (perhaps mistakenly) said developed the charge cloud model of chemistry while staring into a glass of beer and watching the bubbles rise. Whether true or not, this example, and many other examples of scientific discovery, depend not on reasoning but instead on insight, creativity, metaphorical, and other kinds of thinking.
If you will bear with me for a long example, there may be other kinds of sequential reasoning which we may not experience in Western culture because our sequence of logic stops where in other cultures it may not. Many years ago, I lived in Liberia, West Africa. In up-country Liberia, one day I came upon a Liberian friend who I had not seen in many months. As is customary in many African cultures, when people greet each other, I asked not only about how he was, but also about members of his family whom I knew. I specifically asked about his sister whom, he sadly reported, had died only a few weeks before. I asked if she had been ill. He replied that she had been. I asked if his family had sought out traditional care, or care in a Western clinic or hospital for her. He said both traditional and Western care, and that she had been in the Lutheran Hospital, then one of the best in the country. I asked what she had died from. He answered that they didn't know, which surprised me. I asked if he had talked with her doctor about her illness, and he said he had, and that the doctor said she had cancer. I nodded, but was also puzzled. After a moment I asked, "but you said you didn't know the cause of her death." He agreed. I couldn't figure out what the communication problem was. The cause was cancer. Couldn't he understand that, I wondered? Finally, I had an inspiration. I asked, "If you did know the cause, what would you know that you don't know now?" He quickly replied, "We would know who gave her the cancer." In his traditional culture, bad events are brought about by people who do bad things.
Many years later, as I lost friends and family members to cancer, and to other diseases caused by smoking, it dawned on me that what many would assume was a "primitive" way of thinking was a different way of thinking, one that offered Western culture some important insights. Some people would argue that cancer, and several other diseases, are the result of environmental causes resulting from human-made activities. If so, my satisfaction with "cancer" as the cause of my friend's sister's death perhaps was superficial. Pushing that further to "Who gave her the cancer?" or a variation on that question, "why did _she_ get cancer when others in the family or village did not?" may be a beneficial way of thinking about the causes of some diseases. I am not sure what to call this way of thinking. Some might say it is not "scientific" but it raises an important cultural question about reasoning. In a given culture, when do the questions end -- when are people satisfied that they have the answer, when in another culture they are not satisfied and push further for answers?
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
David, your comments touched a many good perspectives, any of which could launch a wonderful discussion.
People think, no matter what. Whether that thinking is processed through reasoning, whether deductive or inductive, probably defines how learners absorb and transmit information, especially academic information and knowledge in the US.
As I noted in another thread,I believe (there I go thinking again!) that we don't see the world as it is; we see it as we are, and, I might add, when others don't project back in our ways, we throw up our hands and, often, walk away. Your example is a delightful description of that although, thankfully, you didn't walk away! I would take your friend's comment as touching on what some would call spiritual: where does it all begin? What think? Leecy
Robert, thanks for the comments. When it comes to technology, I'm an avid, maybe an addicted, user; however, I'm not a techie, and the development process to me represents magic! I watch how technology works, and am amazed at the human brains that can make all of those connections work so that outcomes and predictable and universally applied. I bow to digital intelligence although, as per David's comments, I should bow to the human intelligence that created the digital reasoning! :) Leecy
Robert, you make excellent points. I really had not considered that aspect in the workplace and in digital instruction! I know you have your own take in response to David's question.
I like to think of the characteristic (linear vs. nonlinear) as representing the conflict that occurs in public schools between inductive (public schools) and deductive reasoning. Inductive instruction takes pieces of concepts (fractions, grammar) and drills those pieces which students then must apply to their lives or to problem solving. Instead, deductive reasoning grasps the whole (the story not its pieces) with little interest in analyzing every part. Another way to describe the view might be to use the term "holistic" and "analytic."
Among traditional Native Americans, for example, many little girls grow up observing adults produce beautiful rugs. When it is their turn to create a rug, they often create perfectly measured dimensions with no concept of inches and decimals. Leecy