Domain specific knowledge

I have been slowly working my way through the The Black Swan audio book by Nicholas Taleb and apart from finding the work pretty interesting generally, I was struck by the introduction of the concept of domain specific knowledge.

Taleb raises the issue that knowledge, insight and intuition in a particular context are not always transferable elsewhere. As an example he gives an experiment conducted with university professors of statistics who could not answer basic statistics questions when they were presented conversationally and not in a typical classroom manner. This is something that resonates with the intended outcomes of the Kusasa project - our intention of course is to develop the toolbox of thinking skills and the awareness to know where and how to use them. The extent to which these skills are applicable beyond the scope of the classroom is obvious but whether learners are able to apply them outside the school context is something that we are going to watch with interest as we monitor and evaluate Kusasa.

Recalling my own school experience at Graeme College in the early 1980’s - as kids we were extremely capable at adapting our behavior to suit the the context. Graeme was a pretty rigid, short back and sides kind of place with not a lot of intellectual room to move. I have never really considered if all the kids adapted their behavior to suit the context - but I would imagine that most did to some extent.

It is not unlikely that kids will respond similarly and play “Kusasa” when appropriate… lets wait and see.