Freckles & Doubt

Over the 5 years that I taught physics and maths I also noticed a steady decline in students' ability to apply knowledge in a logical way to construct a coherent solution to a problem. The problem was generally exacerbated when the question was stated in words rather than as a diagram, as students found it difficult to extract the necessary information from sentences and form a clear idea of what was being asked. I came to the conclusion that as well as teaching logical thought progression reading teaches mental discipline and focus, since it is the reader's responsibility to make sense of the story, rather than having the story explained to them. I found that before I could even talk to them about logic I had to teach them to concentrate on one thing for more than a few seconds.