I like the idea, but looking at your examples I’m skeptical that it actually works out that way much in practice. Let’s look at your examples, in order.
Hearing pitch isn’t scaffolding you remove once you learn to sing, which is why skilled vocalists still have ear pieces so that they can hear themselves when they perform. I’m sure they could still sing better than you even with earplugs in, but not to their potential—and their performance would likely degrade with time if you cut that feedback loop.
”Rolling” is absolutely a big part of fighting. It’s not a huge part of striking, but it’s a huge part the grappling aspect of fighting which doesn’t go away, and the rolling only becomes more prevalent at the higher levels of grappling. Heck, Jiu Jitsu is one of the main components of modern MMA, and their term for sparring is literally “rolling”.
If getting into a fencing jacket isn’t a scaffolding skill, then I don’t see how getting into donning helmets and gloves can be—for the exact same reasons. Same with training wheels, which you typically have your parents do for you.
Training wheels have an additional problem in that they actually rob you of the feedback you need in order to learn to ride a bike, making it harder. You could argue that catching yourself with your feet on a balance bike becomes the scaffolding skill, and this is indeed not an integral part of high performance bike riding… but every time you dismount a bike you use this skill. And it’s never a limiting skill in the first place.
Skimming through the rest of your examples, it looks like my objections break down into 3 categories.
That skill is an integral part of high performance, even though once you reach high performance you can perform at low levels okay without it.
There are other ways to do that, in the same way that a fencer could hire an assistant to help him get into his jacket.
That doesn’t actually help develop the skill. You’re better off skipping the metaphorical training wheels and working on the thing itself.
If we get rid of the second criterion, then there are a lot of things that would fit the requirements. That also seems fair, since there are a lot of times you can’t reasonably hire an assistant to get you into your jacket, or to make good pitches for your games. But then again, those would be better described as “supporting skills”, because fencers don’t stop putting on their fencing jackets once they learn to fence.
I’m struggling to come up with an example of a skill you could really remove to no significant detriment once you get good at the thing. Skilled rock climbers by and large would be pretty pissed if you took their ropes, for example. You might be fine forgetting how to navigate Duolingo’s interface once you’re fluent, but that skill seems hardly necessary or limiting in the first place.
It just seems too often that the skills that enable a thing either continue to enable the thing or else enable other things. For example, even if rolling was no longer helpful in fighting it’s also a skill I’ve applied to bike riding, for when I’ve gone over the handlebars—long after I’d learned to ride a bike.
I think you’re right but I also think I can provide examples of “true” scaffolding skills:
How to pass an exam: in order to keep learning with the academic system/university/school you need to regularly do good enough at exams. That is a skill in itself (read the exam in its entirety, know when to move on, learn how hard a question is likely to be depending on the phrasing of the following questions, …) Almost everyone safely forget most of this skill once they are done studying.
Learn to understand your teacher’s feedback: many teachers, professional or otherwise, suck at communicating their feedback. You often need to develop a skill of understanding that specific individual’s feedback. Of course there is a underlying universal skill of “being good at learning how individuals give feedback”; we could think of it as the skill “being good at building a specific kind of scaffolding”.
Learn to accept humiliating defeat: A martial artist friend told me it is important at first to learn to accept losing all the time because you learn in the company of strictly better martial artists. Once you get better, you presumably lose less often.
I like the idea, but looking at your examples I’m skeptical that it actually works out that way much in practice. Let’s look at your examples, in order.
Hearing pitch isn’t scaffolding you remove once you learn to sing, which is why skilled vocalists still have ear pieces so that they can hear themselves when they perform. I’m sure they could still sing better than you even with earplugs in, but not to their potential—and their performance would likely degrade with time if you cut that feedback loop.
”Rolling” is absolutely a big part of fighting. It’s not a huge part of striking, but it’s a huge part the grappling aspect of fighting which doesn’t go away, and the rolling only becomes more prevalent at the higher levels of grappling. Heck, Jiu Jitsu is one of the main components of modern MMA, and their term for sparring is literally “rolling”.
If getting into a fencing jacket isn’t a scaffolding skill, then I don’t see how getting into donning helmets and gloves can be—for the exact same reasons. Same with training wheels, which you typically have your parents do for you.
Training wheels have an additional problem in that they actually rob you of the feedback you need in order to learn to ride a bike, making it harder. You could argue that catching yourself with your feet on a balance bike becomes the scaffolding skill, and this is indeed not an integral part of high performance bike riding… but every time you dismount a bike you use this skill. And it’s never a limiting skill in the first place.
Skimming through the rest of your examples, it looks like my objections break down into 3 categories.
That skill is an integral part of high performance, even though once you reach high performance you can perform at low levels okay without it.
There are other ways to do that, in the same way that a fencer could hire an assistant to help him get into his jacket.
That doesn’t actually help develop the skill. You’re better off skipping the metaphorical training wheels and working on the thing itself.
If we get rid of the second criterion, then there are a lot of things that would fit the requirements. That also seems fair, since there are a lot of times you can’t reasonably hire an assistant to get you into your jacket, or to make good pitches for your games. But then again, those would be better described as “supporting skills”, because fencers don’t stop putting on their fencing jackets once they learn to fence.
I’m struggling to come up with an example of a skill you could really remove to no significant detriment once you get good at the thing. Skilled rock climbers by and large would be pretty pissed if you took their ropes, for example. You might be fine forgetting how to navigate Duolingo’s interface once you’re fluent, but that skill seems hardly necessary or limiting in the first place.
It just seems too often that the skills that enable a thing either continue to enable the thing or else enable other things. For example, even if rolling was no longer helpful in fighting it’s also a skill I’ve applied to bike riding, for when I’ve gone over the handlebars—long after I’d learned to ride a bike.
I think you’re right but I also think I can provide examples of “true” scaffolding skills:
How to pass an exam: in order to keep learning with the academic system/university/school you need to regularly do good enough at exams. That is a skill in itself (read the exam in its entirety, know when to move on, learn how hard a question is likely to be depending on the phrasing of the following questions, …) Almost everyone safely forget most of this skill once they are done studying.
Learn to understand your teacher’s feedback: many teachers, professional or otherwise, suck at communicating their feedback. You often need to develop a skill of understanding that specific individual’s feedback. Of course there is a underlying universal skill of “being good at learning how individuals give feedback”; we could think of it as the skill “being good at building a specific kind of scaffolding”.
Learn to accept humiliating defeat: A martial artist friend told me it is important at first to learn to accept losing all the time because you learn in the company of strictly better martial artists. Once you get better, you presumably lose less often.