CEP 818: What's the Big Idea? Module 4

Abstractions are everywhere. From paintings to language... dance to mathematics... science to poetry, "abstractions are so common in our society that we rarely pay attention to them." (70) When I first read this opening statement, I immediately stopped reading and thought to myself, "Do I notice all the abstractions I see?" So before I even read on, I tried to think of as many noticeable abstractions that I frequently see as I could. Of course I thought of artwork, and logos, and poems, but I quickly realized that I didn't even really know what an abstraction was. My list was pretty short. As I read through the chapter, I started to realize all the abstractions I was leaving out when I was doing my initial brainstorm. The opening statement to this chapter was true. As Sparks somewhat defines it, "Abstracting is a process beginning with reality and using some tool to pare away the excess to reveal the critical, often surprising essence." (90) From the moment I wake up, there are abstractions all around me. The stop light on my drive to work. The subject lines as I read my email. Even my teaching... as I gave the "morning debriefing" to my sewing students before they took way to the sewing machines for the whole hour, it dawned on me - I'm giving an abstract introduction of the class schedule today!

Analogizing, while similar to abstracting is when we find similarities of seemingly disparate things. One obvious example is through poetry. In reality, anytime we ask students to distill the meaning or fundamentals of an idea or thing, and to explain by way of comparison, we are asking them to use abstraction or analogy.

When learning to operate the sewing machine there are 4 processes that the students must learn before they can sew independently. Step 1 is to thread a bobbin (the small plastic spool that goes inside of the machine), step 2 is to thread the machine, and steps 3 and 4 are to "bury the bobbin" and "raise the bobbin." The students came up with the names to these steps because they were difficult to remember and during the Halloween season, they created a mental imagery of placing the bobbin in this lower casing (aka a "grave") and raising the bobbin thread (aka the "zombie within the grave") to the surface. This analogy of unlike objects/ideas helps us all to remember the steps. In addition, when a student is having trouble at their machine, I can simply say to them, "Did you bury and raise the bobbin correctly? This looks like you may have missed a step there," and they know exactly what I'm talking about.

Reading about abstracting and analogizing has really opened my eyes to all of the examples around me. It's also reminded me of what great learning tools these are. I am always asking my students to step back and ask themselves, "What does this remind you of? Can you think of anything that is even sort of like this?" For many students, this is a struggle but I've found that when we brainstorm these ideas as a group my students tend to feed off of one another. I need to remember that when presenting seemingly complicated ideas to my students, such as compound interest, taxes, etc. using abstractions or analogies might help my students with breaking down the information as well as connecting it with other ideas/concepts.