ape wisdom

What can human kind learn from apes? Whatever your main belief or unbelief, apes are supposed to exist before human. There's no logical implication to the thought that what comes after in time is better than what was first. Apes were considered not to have emotions, nor language, nor thought. We're finding out this isn't true. In our inner ape, primatologist Frans de Waal writes his view on why we are and who we are. He is a speaker at the emotions conference at Tilburg University from Monday 22 up to Wednesday 24 October 2007, and I'm curious what he has to say about the possibility of empathy in other animals.

I ask myself what is the best way to evolve into a primatologist?

Maybe by reading this book:The Nature of Play, Pellegrini, A.D. & Smith, P.K. (eds.), New York: Guildford Press
contains a chapter from Dr. Carol Berman, "Object play in great apes: studies in nature and captivity".

Difficult puzzle, scaffolding & automatisation

Difficult puzzles need a strategy to be able to solve them. Smart children just try solving them, trusting their solving skills rather than a strategy. This works until they face a puzzle that seems not to work in that way. Then they have to try something called multilayered strategy. This is exactly the aim of scaffolding, getting insight in structure of solution, rather than being able to just solve the puzzle without having to worry how they did it.
In the midst of this comes emotions that are new to smart children: failure, frustration, stress... These emotions are often successfully avoided because smart children often can solve problems easily. When the puzzle is difficult enough, they get the chance to experience these emotions. A good teacher knows that emotions are a part of education. It is good to reflect on the emotions. What happened? How did you feel?
Then the child has to finish the task anyway. This means perseverance. The more perseverance, the better the child will feel when it does succeed to solve the problem in the end.
When they succeeded to solve the difficult puzzle, accompanied with the necessary frustration, the next step is to teach the child to automatize the puzzle.

Aggression

In England there are successful experiments involving the playground. The playground is divided into zones (zoneparc). Aggression involves many aspects, such as unemployment, relationships, communication between parents and boys, television as a role model, community...We should list these, list good practices and let scientists evaluate the measures. I also think assessment of how each child learns may have a profound positive preventive effect. We really need to continue to reform schools into more adaptive places, where children learn basics, e.g. time-management ("be quiet for ten minutes") and sublimation of emotions ("I'm angry, I'm going to make a drawing about it").