Over the weekend my mil left out an article she knew would get my dander up. It was in a special-education trade magazine (she's a speech therapist) and reported on a study that purported to show that people actually learned better when things were presented in an abstract way than a concrete way.

The study itself involved an artificially created "math" and "science" that showed computer-generated symbols that merged to create some new computer-generated symbols. The more abstract the symbols were (flat pictures versus animated 3D), the easier it was for students to learn it. (I don't recall what the ages of the subjects were; I don't think the article made it clear.)

Arbitrary computer-generated symbols merging on the screen is a "concrete learning experience?" Um, no. What this study proved was that if you're doing something artificial to begin with, it's easier if you don't try to make it look like something else real but totally unconnected. A valid deduction, and one I heartily agree with, is that it's not helpful to have letters and numbers sing and dance. But that wasn't making the experience more concrete in the first place--it was taking a symbol and adding a few more layers of symbols to it.

If concrete learning means anything, it means real things, things you can grab with your hands and move around. Learning on a computer is always going to be abstract and symbolic.