"Fish is Fish (Lionni, 1970) describes a fish who is keenly interested in learning about what happens on land, but the fish cannot explore land because it can only breathe in water. It befriends a tadpole who grows into a frog and eventually goes out onto the land. The frog returns to the pond a few weeks later and reports on what he has seen. The frog describes all kinds of things like birds, cows, and people. The book shows pictures of the fish's representations of each of these descriptions: each is a fish-like form that is slightly adapted to accommodate the frog's descriptions- people are imagined to be fish who walk on their tailfins, birds are fish with wings, cows are fish with udders. This tale illustrates both the creative opportunities and dangers inherent in the fact that people construct new knowledge based on their current knowledge."
From "How People Learn: brain, mind, experience, and school" by John D. Bransford, et al.(2000, Washington, DC: National Academy Press), pg. 11.
1 comment:
This can be seen in the dangerous way as is suggested in the comment. But it can also open up the question as to how one gets knowledge about those realms which normal experience doesn't have access to. This too, of course, would require us to be vigilant in not interpriting such knowledge incorrectly ('ethnocentrically', if you will)
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