- Many children don't really know the difference between knowing something and not. They often create a whole bunch of rules to try and solve the problems or to answer the teacher's question. - For example a child might be able to solve addition problems using some rules but may not have a foundational understanding of numbers. - I have seen this myself with respect to reading in our centers. When they finally realise what it means to read and how letters come together to form words they are really thrilled that everything makes sense. - For the children who really know the universe makes some sense. Things are logical and they recognise that they have made sense of things. They are not simply following some arbitrary process. - It is important for a child to think whether the answer they gave makes sense or not and to be convinced that answers do make sense. --- Thus the problem is not to get students to ask us what they don't know; the problem is to make them aware of the difference between what they know and what they don't. - John Holt in [[How Children Fail]] Intelligent children act as if they thought the universe made some sense. - John Holt in [[How Children Fail]] I then said, "What is 2 X 100?" She said, "200." I asked for 2 x 90. 180. 2 x 80? (Pause) 160. 2 X 76? 432. 2 x 70? 140. 2 x 80? 160. 2 x 76? 432. 2 x 100? 200. 2 X 200? 400. 2 X 76? 432 ... Here she stopped, looked at me searchingly, and then said, "Now wait a minute." She ran to get pencil and paper, saying, "This doesn't make sense, I'm going to figure this out." On the paper, she worked out that 2 X 76 was 152. Something very important happened when she said, "Now wait a minute." She was seeing, perhaps for the first time, that we can ask of an answer to a problem, not just " Is it right?" or " Is it wrong?" but "Is it sensible?" - John Holt in [[How Children Fail]]