[etni] George Stoyonovich's Miracle The antidote to the HOTS of cause and effect
- From: "Chezi Fine" <hezi5@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 00:04:01 +0200
George Stoyonovich's Miracle
Toeing the English-Inspectorate's line, Zelenko, et al set out to
"integrate" the HOTS of cause and effect in Malamud's _A Summer's Reading_
in _ Literature for 5 Points _ by explicitly introducing the HOTS of cause
and effect in Exercise E (pp 47-48) thus:
Things that happen make more sense when we understand:
why they have happened (cause)
what the result is (effect)
The ability to describe and explain this relationship is called EXPLAINING
CAUSE AND EFFECT
This unqualified claim is then followed by a series of exercises, the first
of which purports to "teach" students the HOTS of cause and effect.
In Exercise #1 (page 47), students complete a graphic organizer in which
they fill in either a cause or an effect. The explicit instruction for this
exercise is: Think of _a_ possible cause or effect for each of the
following: The instruction is then followed by 5 items. Even before we
attempt to do the exercise, let us think about these questions:
Question 1: Do events in our real world have just one possible cause or just
one possible effect? Or do they have sets of possible causes and sets of
possible effects?
Question 2: Is there just one type of cause or are there different types of
causes?
Question 3: Is it important to distinguish between types of causes?
For example, what caused the terrible forest fire in the Carmel Mountains?
The negligence of two adolescents from Usfiya , who didn't extinguish the
bonfire they lit in the pine forest? The unusually warm autumn? The dry
conditions of the undergrowth? The strong winds?
Is there just one cause for this fire or are there a set of causes,
conditions and occurrences that had to exist for the fire to break out and
rage?
In our Carmel-forest-fire example, what are the implications of
distinguishing the first type of cause (the efficient cause) from the other
s (conditions / occasions)?
In the first item in this exercise, the student will most likely fill in an
efficient cause - something in the line of
"He insulted me in front of everyone. -> I'm not speaking to my friend."
In the third item, the student will most likely fill in a circumstance or a
combination of circumstances:
"The teacher slipped on the banana peel and fell down. -> Everyone
laughed.
Will this exercise teach our students the important difference between an
efficient cause and a condition or an occasion?
The difference between the two causes is important because it allows us to
assign blame - a concept that plays a significant role in our daily life.
Has this first exercise done a good job of teaching the concept of cause?
What do you think?
I wouldn't be too surprised if you answered in the negative. As it is,
causality is an extremely problematic concept.
Roy Jay Nelson defines causality in fiction as a hypothesis made by readers
("a readerly hypothesis about a relationship of derivativeness between two
observed phenomena"), and in the larger context sees "causation as a
subjective pattern, as a model of some practical utility in the specific
situations of everyday life, but meaningless as a scientific or
philosophical generality" (Causality and Narrative in French Fiction, NOTES
TO CHAPTER 1 xxv, xxvii).
https://kb.osu.edu/.../CAUSALITY_AND_NARRATIVE_IN_FRENCH_FICTION_FROM_ZOLA_T
O_ROBBE-GRILLET.pdf
If causation is a subjective pattern, a model of SOME practical utility in
the specific situations of everyday life, but meaningless as a scientific or
philosophical generality, then what exactly do the students take away from
Zelenko et al 's second exercise, that will make them more adept at applying
this particular HOTS to their daily life?
In this second exercise, Zelenko et al bring a list of 7 items with emotions
that George Stoyonovich experiences in the course of the story and instruct
the pupils to "explain" what "causes" these emotions.
Explaining emotions is notoriously difficult. Since they are entities in the
mind, they are not amenable to investigation by the scientific method
developed for the entities of the physical world. We cannot formulate
generalizations based on empirical observations of emotions by the use of
inductive -deductive methods. We cannot quantify emotions or write
formulas expressing the functional relations between them and other
entities. They cannot be explained via the apparatus of transformations of
matter and energy. The concepts of cause and effect are useless. Concerning
emotions, no scientific systematization is possible. Therefore, we cannot
explain them scientifically.
In item 1 in the Exercise #2, George was ashamed because he has to admit
that he hasn't finished school. The cause seems to be outside George, in the
real world.
But when George feels ashamed because he brings to his mind a picture of
himself sitting with kid too young for his age in a summer school, the cause
seems to be inside George's mind since, in the story, George won't go to
summer school.
In item 3, George feels _unhappy_ after he lies to Mr. Cattanzara about
planning to read 100 books from a list he got from the library.
But in item 7, George feels _relieved_ after he lies to the man on the
street corner about having finished reading the 100 books.
Two totally different emotions seem to be generated by one action, lying.
Because there is no tried and true method for finding the causes of
emotions, students have no choice but to work mechanistically, looking for
"markers" of cause and effect and resort to the unsound method of dubbing
an event that came before the emotion as its cause.
Item #2: Why was George lonely? (Look for the marker, dummy!) "a girl to go
with, _so as _not to be so lonely!"
Item #6: Why was George afraid to leave his room and go for his regular
walks? (Look at the time expression "next night"! Nu, what happened on the
previous night? You should have the cause, shouldn't you?)
No wonder, then, that Exercise #3 (page48), in which students are expected
to use the skill of explaining cause and effect, is a repeat of
mechanistically looking for what happened before.
"George knew that he looked passable on the outside but inside he was
crumbling apart." Why? Because of what happened before!
Here is the answer from the teacher's book, (p. 41):
When Mr. Cattanzara asks George the name of one book that he has read that
summer, George can't answer. While outwardly has managed to keep his
composure, inside he feels extremely embarrassed and ashamed.
What "higher order" thinking skill is being taught and practiced, if all
students have to do is mechanistically look for markers of causes or use
their common sense to derive the connection between the cause and the effect
from their temporal proximity? Couldn't they do this before having gone
through this silly attempt at artificially integrating the HOTS of cause and
effect into the short story?
Is temporal proximity a guarantee of a cause and its effect? What if the
rooster crows at the break of day and afterwards the sun rises on the
horizon of the morning sky? Is anyone in his right mind going to claim that
the rooster causes the sun to rise?
Exercise #4 (p. 48) asks where else the students might find this thinking
skill useful and provide illustrative examples from their own experience.
The Teacher's Book provides two example answers: (1) Studying hard for an
exam will probably result in a good grade; and (2) Baking a cake without one
of the ingredients will result in less than a perfect cake. Really?! Won't
copying from a strong student without getting caught also result in a good
grade? Won't accidentally dropping a cake baked with all the necessary
ingredients onto the floor also result in less than a perfect cake?
So accept all reasonable answers. What's the big problem?
The problem is that in the absence of any systematic way of going about
determining cause and effect we would be hard put to disqualify answers as
unreasonable. If the teacher is tired and mistakenly exchanges my poor mark
with that of an excellent pupil, won't that result in my getting a good
grade? For a creative mind, the possibilities are endless. They have to be -
given Nelson's definition of causality as "a readerly hypothesis about a
relationship of derivativeness between two observed phenomena".
If anything goes, how are we to determine whether our pupils have indeed
mastered the HOTS of cause and effect?
In the final exercise of reflection, in item #2 (p. 49), Zelenko et al ask
the students this question:
How did learning about the skills of Explaining Cause and Effect and
Uncovering Motives influence your understanding of the story? Give examples.
Will you be surprised if I told you that their teacher's book recommends
accepting all reasonable answers?
Why don't I try to answer this question- the Cause and Effect part - while
you keep your eyes peeled for whatever is unreasonable in it?
Learning about the skill of cause and effect greatly influenced my
understanding of the story. Now I understand that the story wants to promote
the message that since our emotions are caused by external forces there is
nothing we can do but feel them. George feels what he feels because external
causes force these feeling upon him. He feels lonely because of an external
situation. He doesn't have a girlfriend. He feels fine because of an
external situation. His neighbors approve his reading. He feels relieved
because someone else, Cattanzara, hasn't told on him.
This helped me to understand why I feel what I feel in my own personal life.
I can now understand why I couldn't help but fly into a rage when a miserly,
60-year old American tourist in Jerusalem refused to give me a cigarette -
even though I asked him politely. I can now understand why I can't help but
feel very horny at the local disco on Friday night when the girls of the
neighborhood come scantily dressed, exuding passion perfume.
If it weren't for the "explanation" provided by the HOTS of cause and
effect, I would never have reached the understanding that my emotions are
caused by outside forces. I would have kept on thinking that I have a say
in the formation of my own emotions. For example, I would have kept on
thinking that counting up to ten might help to control my rage. After all,
is there a scientific explanation for how by sheer will power I can induce
the emotion of happiness in myself - something that I am enjoined to do on
religious holidays, for example?
Chanukah is a time for miracles. During Chanukah, the observant thank the
Almighty for the miracles performed for the Jewish people in the prayer that
begins with the words "Al HaNissim." However, for the religiously minded,
as the execution of God's will, the miraculous is no more awesome than the
natural; miracles are happening all the time even though, because they are
so frequent, we are not aware of them as such. The observant thank the
Almighty daily in the prayer beginning with the word "MODIM", in the Amidah:
".for Your miracles which are daily with us.."
One such miracle which is daily with us is the freedom we have as human
beings to take control of our inner lives, including our emotions, and
decide to bring about sea changes in whatever it is that we feel requires
_tikkun_. Even George Stoyonovich can decide by sheer will power to count
off 100 books and sit down to read. We cannot scientifically explain how his
mental decision causes changes in his body, can we? Even so, everything
seems to make more sense when we simply accept that he has the power to do
it, doesn't it?
Chag Chanukah Same'ach.
Chezi Fine
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