RPGs and Learning: Accounting the Other Language
I've realized how much Accounting is more of a language than actually a kind of math. I find it closer to language because it is just so heavily laden with context and assumptions that makes it a severe challenge to learn.
Compared to Learning About computers where you have a process and you learn every step of the process.
In accounting, at least in the book I'm using. The case problems presented (homework I'm supposed to do on my own) is taking me 3-4hours a day to figure out (even when my CPA wife and mother are trying to explain it to me). This obviously is pissing me off to no end- why use such a terribly in efficient method in teaching Accounting?
I've always had to build into my explanation the assumptions people will be needing to understand my context. Awareness of assumptions or, what can be described as, mutually understood and considered data and factors, (the act) is something always revisited and reminded (in footnotes) in every piece of communication (particularly very complicated ideas).
What I find lacking is this build up of assumptions and expressing them and excersizing the mind of the reader in getting its subtlety. Instead of tackling small precise pieces of knowledge that needs clarifying the book I'm using Jumps into something like Cicero's Adress of the Senate instead of a few speaking lines of language decoding.
Not enough exercise on the small parts and too much big picture. Its like when you're wit is crafting a quick joke, you look at a small bit of data in all the possible perspectives you can in a short amount of time and use the most totaly absurd corresponding to the current context. Wit takes a small piece or breaks things down to small managable pieces... the way this book is approaching it gives you a ton of pieces and expects you to quickly understand how they are supposed to be assembled... the lack of foundational knowledge creation is insulting because it assumes there is only ONE kind of intelligence to be delt with in Accounting.
Understanding how I learn, I find my kind of intelligence being excluded pretty insulting since my coping ability is disproportionate to my testable intelligence (and that testible intelligence is what I've been fighting against, and I'm sure others have had to cope against testable intelligence despite their other strengths).
Instead of a Pure-Technical Skill, particularly converting it to something more palatable to my intelligence. The way RPGs have helped me learn is it allowed Spacial and Visual Intelligence, Memory, and a my own nurtured observation processs translate the pattern and systems into my own Mental Structure.
The way a Munckin can quickly analyze the pros and cons, juggle a bit of the statistics, and meta-analyze its application given the GM and the Players (a complicated feat) should be applicable to understanding concepts of debit and credit. Except that the difference is numbers without visual context is a dull gray ambigious form in the minds eye.
That same goes for a rules lawyer who can memorize a ton of rules, shouldnt have a problem doing that with Accounting process... Creative ways to do accounting is lost because there are no interesting examples the way a rules lawyer would drool over a particular combination.
Context, especially exciting context is what is usually lacking. The way Einstien was said to make every math problem a mystery, was to provide context for the numbers. Many minds operate in the Visual, Complex Real World.
If I were to say, Take Case 3-4 Pinetree Motel and change the context to a Traveller Independent Merchanter. Where the Exhibit 1 was the 1st quarter operation summary, and exhibit 2 is the JTAS business article about a successful starting independent merchanter's Operating Data Survey, add a touch of excitment in the entries, and throw in a mystery in the text that focuses on the chapter's most key topics (a month the assets and expenses), with an element of psychological layer- they are hiding something or someone is hiding something from them.
Role play some of the fact finding aspects (suppliers, employees, patrons and competitors) and you have something real instead of a plain math formula.
Compared to Learning About computers where you have a process and you learn every step of the process.
Ex. When I learned 3d Graphics, there is a simple process to do anything. Every problem and exercise is meant for the student to repeat the process and react highlighting the finer points of the process. The tutorials come with step by step instruction, then have a sample excerise that requires you to repeat the process several times.
So when I was supposed to learn to make a "spaceship" there were several key skills I had to get used to. Particularly modeling, skinning, basic animation, background construction etc.
Modeling involved manipulating shapes and making sure everything was made up of square areas (to prevent artifacts that don't render well).
In accounting, at least in the book I'm using. The case problems presented (homework I'm supposed to do on my own) is taking me 3-4hours a day to figure out (even when my CPA wife and mother are trying to explain it to me). This obviously is pissing me off to no end- why use such a terribly in efficient method in teaching Accounting?
I've always had to build into my explanation the assumptions people will be needing to understand my context. Awareness of assumptions or, what can be described as, mutually understood and considered data and factors, (the act) is something always revisited and reminded (in footnotes) in every piece of communication (particularly very complicated ideas).
What I find lacking is this build up of assumptions and expressing them and excersizing the mind of the reader in getting its subtlety. Instead of tackling small precise pieces of knowledge that needs clarifying the book I'm using Jumps into something like Cicero's Adress of the Senate instead of a few speaking lines of language decoding.
Not enough exercise on the small parts and too much big picture. Its like when you're wit is crafting a quick joke, you look at a small bit of data in all the possible perspectives you can in a short amount of time and use the most totaly absurd corresponding to the current context. Wit takes a small piece or breaks things down to small managable pieces... the way this book is approaching it gives you a ton of pieces and expects you to quickly understand how they are supposed to be assembled... the lack of foundational knowledge creation is insulting because it assumes there is only ONE kind of intelligence to be delt with in Accounting.
Understanding how I learn, I find my kind of intelligence being excluded pretty insulting since my coping ability is disproportionate to my testable intelligence (and that testible intelligence is what I've been fighting against, and I'm sure others have had to cope against testable intelligence despite their other strengths).
Instead of a Pure-Technical Skill, particularly converting it to something more palatable to my intelligence. The way RPGs have helped me learn is it allowed Spacial and Visual Intelligence, Memory, and a my own nurtured observation processs translate the pattern and systems into my own Mental Structure.
The way a Munckin can quickly analyze the pros and cons, juggle a bit of the statistics, and meta-analyze its application given the GM and the Players (a complicated feat) should be applicable to understanding concepts of debit and credit. Except that the difference is numbers without visual context is a dull gray ambigious form in the minds eye.
That same goes for a rules lawyer who can memorize a ton of rules, shouldnt have a problem doing that with Accounting process... Creative ways to do accounting is lost because there are no interesting examples the way a rules lawyer would drool over a particular combination.
Context, especially exciting context is what is usually lacking. The way Einstien was said to make every math problem a mystery, was to provide context for the numbers. Many minds operate in the Visual, Complex Real World.
If I were to say, Take Case 3-4 Pinetree Motel and change the context to a Traveller Independent Merchanter. Where the Exhibit 1 was the 1st quarter operation summary, and exhibit 2 is the JTAS business article about a successful starting independent merchanter's Operating Data Survey, add a touch of excitment in the entries, and throw in a mystery in the text that focuses on the chapter's most key topics (a month the assets and expenses), with an element of psychological layer- they are hiding something or someone is hiding something from them.
Role play some of the fact finding aspects (suppliers, employees, patrons and competitors) and you have something real instead of a plain math formula.
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