Ruislip

Did you know that the name “Ruislip” is pronounced “rai-zlip”? That’s all I keep thinking about when I see my current scrabble tiles. So even though the board is relatively empty and I have a blank tile, I can’t seem to find the word that will give me the 60 points I ought to be able to get. All because I have Ruislip stuck in my head.

One of the sessions I was at today in school was about Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget talked about one’s schema, and how there needs to be cognitive dissonance so that something new can be learnt — a sort of disruption or conflict within one’s mind, so that new possibilities can be opened up. Only then can any learning be done.

The two possibilities he talked about are termed assimilation and accommodation, but I realised that these words were used from the perspective of within an individual’s mind, and that was rather counter-intuitive to me. So I kinda blocked those words out.

But right now my mind is entrenched in the word Ruislip, and I can’t see beyond this word. That’s where Vygotsky comes in: only in a social context can people learn best. From a more knowledgeable other, I could have new ideas triggered that will help me resolve that cognitive dissonance and give me ideas for learning. Someone else needs to look at my board and tell me what they see, without me telling them about my preoccupation with the word Ruislip.
But all my friends are asleep, or sick, or busy, or uninterested. Bet Vygotsky didn’t see that coming.