"Doc" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote in
:

The mechanisms in the book were great for teaching manufacturing and
the finished mechanisms, they were taken by teachers to use as
teaching aids.


Doc

Your experience probably agrees with that I've heard from many
teachers, that a physical example of what's being taught is a
tremendous help both in explaining the lesson, and, even more
importantly, cementing it in the students' memories. That's why I've
built demonstration pieces for several of my son's classes when he was
in school. The tin-can electric motor was a particular winner.

It's also a probable reason that physics was my best subject in high
school, and why I remember so much of it. We built equipment to
demonstrate practically everything. I even built a ruby-rod laser that
was pumped with a No. 25 photographic flash bulb in an elliptical
reflector.


Absolutely, I am convinced that a lot of machinists are tactile learners
and cannot count the number of times that students have told me, "I learn
best when I can have the real thing to figure out as opposed to reading
the
manual". My guess is that a lot of the people in this group are of that
ilk.

Probably so. I'd guess that most people are, actually. And most of us
certainly learn *some* things better by doing.

BTW, from that high school physics class I mentioned, one student got an 800
on his Physics SAT (then called "SAT Achievement" tests). Another got a 795,
and he just skipped over transistors completely, because he couldn't get
them into his head at the time.

And several more had very high scores. Three of us from that group competed
in our state high school Physics competition: one finished 8th, another
16th; the third was 64th in the state. And that was just from a regular
public school class, not Advanced Placement or anything like that.

It made a believer out of me. My wife is pretty deeply into this in a
specialized area, since she teaches handicapped kids. She's always designing
tactile lessons, and lessons where the kids have to put something
together -- usually with glue. g

--
Ed Huntress