Lie-to-children

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates A lie-to-children is a simplified, and often technically incorrect, explanation of technical or complex subjects employed as a teaching method. Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive, but instead seek to 'meet the child/pupil/student where they are', in order to facilitate initial comprehension, which they build upon over time as the learner's intellectual capacity expands. The technique has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics and the social sciences.

Origin and development

The "lie-to-children" concept was first discussed by scientist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart in the 1994 book The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World as myths—a means of ensuring that accumulated cultural lore is passed on to future generations in a way that was sufficient but not completely true.<ref name="andysawyer" /><ref name="butler">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="collapse">Template:Cite book</ref>

They further elaborated upon their views in Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind, stating that the lie-to-children concept reflected the difficulty inherent in reducing complex concepts during the education process.<ref name="figments" /><ref name="douglaschapman">Template:Cite news</ref> Stewart and Cohen noted that "[a]ny description suitable for human minds to grasp must be Template:Em type of lie-to-children", and that the truth is "much too complicated for our limited minds".<ref name="figments">Template:Cite book</ref>

The concept gained greater exposure when they co-authored The Science of Discworld with author Terry Pratchett. In this book, the authors acknowledge that some people might dispute the applicability of the term lie, while defending it on the grounds that "it is for the best possible reasons, but it is still a lie".<ref name="pratchett">Template:Cite book</ref> In an interview promoting the book, Pratchett cautioned: "Most of us need just 'enough' knowledge of the sciences, and it's delivered to us in metaphors and analogies that bite us in the bum if we think they're the same as the truth."<ref name="davidlangford">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="langfordamazon">Template:Cite news</ref>

Examples in education

A typical example of a lie-to-children is found in physics and chemistry, where the Bohr model (one type of planetary model) of atomic electron shells is still often used to introduce atomic structure before moving on to more complex models based on modern quantum mechanics. In a sense, these Bohr model diagrams can be better understood as a schematic illustrating how many electrons are in which shell and/or the redistribution of electrons in an ionic bond or covalent bond.

Similarly in chemistry, students are often introduced to the Arrhenius definitions of acids and bases before being taught the more technically correct but more complex Brønsted–Lowry model, followed by the Lewis model. This order of teaching chemistry concepts also reflects the historical progression in the development of these models.

High school teachers and university instructors often explain at the outset that the model they are about to present is incomplete. An example of this was given by Gerald Sussman during the 1986 video recording of the Abelson–Sussman Lectures:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:Blockquote

Analysis

Comparison to other concepts

Andrew Sawyer compared the concept to that of science fiction in the article "Narrativium and Lies-to-children: 'Palatable Instruction' in The Science of DiscworldTemplate:-", in which he wrote: "The 'lies-to-children' we tell ourselves about science are a different form of science fiction: one, perhaps where 'fiction' qualifies the word 'science'. They are 'fictions about science' rather than 'science fictions'."<ref name="andysawyer">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="butler" />

Anthony Judge has noted that the concept itself is a lie-to-children for more complex concepts in the philosophy of science.<ref name="judge">Template:Cite web</ref>

Writing for Forbes in 2015, physics professor and science journalist Chad Orzel explored how the University of California Museum of Paleontology initiative Understanding Science goes beyond a simple explanation of the scientific method in a lie-to-children format, and instead goes into more depth and specifics to directly inform others on how science impacts their daily quality of living.<ref name="orzel">Template:Cite web</ref>

Application across fields

Writing for Forbes, Tim Worstall commented on the lie-to-children's application in physics and music, where lessons on scales precede those on atonality, common time and half time precede syncopation. He noted that Newton's physics is a lie-to-children compared to Einstein's additions.<ref name="worstall">Template:Cite web</ref>

In Nonlinear Dynamics in the Life and Social Sciences, Jack Cohen discussed the application of lies-to-children to teaching evolution, including the notion of DNA's purpose as a "blueprint", stating that "[o]nly the search for universal features, while treasuring all the exceptional specifics, offers some hope of sketching out the general shape of the evolutionary process so that we can explain it honestly as a Lie-to-Children".<ref name="nonlinear">Template:Cite book</ref> Similarly, in Bioinformatics, Biocomputing and Perl, authors Michael Moorhouse and Paul Barry explained how the lie-to-children model may be utilized as a teaching technique for the concepts of protein, RNA, and DNA.<ref name="moorhouse">Template:Cite book</ref>

In a computer science paper on linear algebra instruction, D. J. Jeffrey and Robert M. Corless from the University of Western Ontario identified an example from early childhood mathematics instruction: "We happily teach children that 'you cannot take 3 from 2' because we are confident that someone will later introduce them to negative numbers."<ref name="teachinglinear">Template:Cite web</ref> Corless followed up on this view in a subsequent paper, stating that "mathematics before computers was a lie to children".<ref name="corless2004">Template:Cite web</ref>

Drawbacks

In Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life, Cohen and Stewart themselves warned of a potential side effect of lies-to-children in reducing complex science concepts to overly simplified explanations.<ref name="langfordevolving">Template:Cite news</ref> In a paper published in Digital Difference, Jen Ross and Hamish Macleod wrote that lies-to-children can have a negative impact on learners by setting an unreasonable expectation for "simple and unambiguous questions and equally simple answers".<ref name="macleodross">Template:Cite book</ref>

In the journal Metaphilosophy, Kirsten Walsh and Adrian Currie drew a distinction between "caricature" and "mythmaking" in the framework of lies-to-children, and concluded that mythmaking is unjustified.<ref name="walsh">Template:Cite journal</ref> North Eastern Hill University economics professor Sudhanshu K. Mishra explored the use of mythology in parenting, such as the case of parents telling children that they were brought by a stork to the house, instead of providing a more adequate explanation of childbirth.<ref name="mishra">Template:Cite web</ref> In The Children's Bill of Emotional Rights, Eileen Johnson discussed the problems that childhood mythology could cause in the future during the parenting process. Johnson cautioned that the lie must eventually be revealed, and that parents "are not sure how much of this deceit is right, how far to go with it, and how and when to explain it was all a lie".<ref name="eileenjohnson">Template:Cite book</ref>

In a column for the Carleton College blog Earth and Mind, geophysicist Kim Kastens and her daughter Dana Chayes listed potential pitfalls, such as how a lie-to-children that must later be unlearned may provide a potential obstacle to subsequent teachers, or how a student may discern the lie.<ref name="kastens">Template:Cite web</ref> They also listed criteria to avoid the pitfalls, such as ensuring that the teacher understands the truth beyond the lie-to-children, and having a "master plan" of a learning progression that the lies-to-children work toward.<ref name="kastens" /> In a contribution to Teaching Bilingual/Bicultural Children, Haroom Kharem and Genevieve Collura asserted that the revelation of lie-to-children makes educators seem disingenuous and undermines students' respect for them.<ref name="kharem">Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

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External links

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