- Often when a child is confused about why something is happening we tend to explain it to them using formal reasoning or proving scientifically using equations and logic how it works. - This doesn't really help the child at all since what the child is looking for is a better understanding of why their intuition failed them. - When I explained to learners how forks balanced on a toothpick ([link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXG3sSbSshc)) I found that rather than explaining center of gravity and the physics behind it, showing them how they can achieve a similar balance with their own bodies or in different ways was much more effective. --- Usually when a student in this plight goes to the physics teacher saying, “I think the gyroscope should fall instead of standing upright,” the teacher responds by writing an equation to prove that the thing stands upright. But that is not what the student needed. He already knew that it would stay upright, and this knowledge hurt by conflicting with intuition. By proving that it will stand upright the teacher rubs salt in the wound but does nothing to heal it. What the student needs is something quite different: better understanding of himself, not of the gyroscope. He wants to know why his intuition gave him a wrong expectation. He needs to know how to work on his intuitions in order to change them. - Seymour Papert in [[Mindstorms]]