Rainee Hodges’s Response:
One of the first things I did as an adolescent was learning to drive. The bad part about this experience was that my father would not let me start out learning in an automatic vehicle; he made me learn to drive a standard vehicle first. He always said, “If you ever get stranded and a standard is all you have to get away; I want you to know how to use it.” Here I am in the middle of a cow pasture at twelve years old, trying to learn how a clutch and gear shift worked simultaneously, and why I could not just push the gas like any of the ATVs I had previously driven. I eventually had to realize that in order for the gear to catch and the car not to die, I had to gently remove my foot from the clutch while shifting gears. This was one of the most difficult things I believe I have ever attempted. Even today, the concept is slightly difficult because I drive an automatic now, and I do not practice driving a standard often.
For me, this experience relates to Piaget’s concepts because I was learning something for the first time and trying to compare and categorize my experience with old experiences. I was able to relate this driving experience to a previous experience of driving four-wheelers and such, but this time, I was driving a large vehicle with extra mechanics with which I was unfamiliar. I realized how the gas and the breaks mimicked all other gas and breaks, so I was able to classify this into some form of motorized contraption. On the other hand, this vehicle would not fit into the same category as all other gas and break thing because it encompassed other elements, such as the clutch and gear shift. This particular situation, I would categorize as accommodation. I tried to assimilate it with other previous experiences that were similar, but ultimately, I needed to make it have its own box because it did not fit. I could not make the clutch and gear shift make sense to me and why it needed to work together in order for the truck to run until I viewed it all on its own and saw it as a totally new experience. I had to change my perception in order to forget all the previous things I “thought” I knew about mechanics in order to comprehend the process of a standard vehicle.
Response:
Ziplining is something that I did for the first time as an adolescent. Piaget talks about assimilation and accommodation. Accommodation is where you need to create a new schema for the new situation. Assimilation is where you can fit the new experience or situation into your excising schema. Ziplining was an experience that was not like any other I have encountered. I have been ziplining twice and both times where different. The first time was in Maine about 4 years ago. I was with my family and we spend the day in the mountains. I had never been to the mountains before so the whole experience was new to me. My ziplining experience was more of accommodation because I had nothing to assimilate it too. I had never hung from a rope above the trees in the mountains before. The harness and the cords were all something that I had never experienced. I needed to create a new schema in order to take in the information
The second time that I went Ziplining, it was more of assimilation. I had already experienced the feel of the harness and the cords. I already knew what it was going to feel like and look like. The second time I went ziplining, I was in Costa Rica with my high school class. There were still parts of the experience that were new, like the environment and the weather, but I was able to assimilate the new experience with the old one. For example, it was raining very hard the second time that I went ziplining. The first time that I went ziplining, it was sunny and warm. When ziplining the second time, I knew what to expect, but not with rain. I was scared the lines were going to be too wet and I would not be able to stop. I knew how to stop the zipline already so I was able to be confident that by adding just a little more force to the stopping action, I would be able to stop.
Overall, the first time that I experienced ziplining, I was shy and not too sure of what to expect. I needed to create a new schema in order to take in the new information. The second time I went ziplining was different than the first, but I was able to assimilate the old experience with the new one. I was more eager to zipline the second time because I knew what to expect.
Response to Rainee Hodges
Your experience is a perfect example of assimilation and accommodation at work. It is interesting to note how your previous knowledge was interfering with your ability to acquire new knowledge. This owes to the fact that learning the new skill needed you to unlearn the other. Your thoughts conflicted since the two seem so related yet different.
Response to Cara Fenton
Your first-time zip lining must have benne a terrifying experience for you. You, however, gathered courage and assimilated the knowledge. I can only imagine how it must have felt to have to experience a new level of scary when you had to do it again; only this time, lousy weather was a new challenge to survive.