Page 223 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

Listening Levels in Action

Scenario:
A class has been given the following assignment: View the clip of Carl Sagan discussing the 4th dimension
which is available on the FOL online resources (www.pcrest2.com/fol). After you have watched the clip,
write a brief paragraph wherein you respond to the clip and express what you learned from it.

LEVEL 5: High Quality Listener (Star Performer Paula)

What a fascinating 7 minutes! I hadn’t been very familiar with Carl Sagan, but since watching the assigned clip, have
watched several other clips featuring him. I found his obvious passion for the subject matter to be contagious; I
wanted to know more. I did find out that Flatland, by Edwin Abbot, is available for free, online. I’ve started reading
it and while it goes into much greater detail than I need, I am interested in further exploring how Abbot describes
the experiences of Square when he’s lifted out of Flatland. I was struck, repeatedly, by the similarities between
what Sagan demonstrated in Flatland and how people talk about phenomena like ghosts or spiritual or ESP-type
experiences. The “voice from within”that the Square experiences is very similar to the way some individuals claim
to hear a voice warning them not to get on a plane or to call someone they love. Could this, then, be described
as the voice of a 4-D creature attempting to interact with someone in a 3-D world? And when Square’s friends
react to his wild tale of where he’d been, they reacted with precisely the amount of scepticism you’d expect of
creatures who KNEW that the world only had two dimensions. I wonder to what degree what I KNOW about the
world depends upon the fact that my senses are 3-dimensional filters...

LEVEL 4: Effective Listener (Self-Starter Sam)

I enjoyed the clip; I like Carl Sagan and had watched a few episodes of his show, Cosmos, in the past. He did a
great job of starting with a 2-D world and exploring how things like movement and perception work within that
world. When he introduced a 3-D creature into the world, I could visualize exactly what he was talking about...the
apple would be at first a dot, but then an odd roughly circular ‘creature’ which would grow in size, then shrink in
size, until finally disappearing. Using what Carl explained as dimensional projections later in the clip, this means
that a 4-D creature appearing in our 3-D world would appear, at all times, as a 3-D creature. But it would begin as a
small red apple (let’s say it’s a 4-D apple) progressively growing in size, then shrinking in size, until it disappeared.
That’s the limit of what 3-D creatures (us) could perceive as a 4-D ‘visitor’. I’m still pondering what I’d perceive if a
4-D apple scooped down and “lifted” me into the 4th dimension...

LEVEL 3: Maintenance Listener (Responsive Rene)

This was a really interesting clip. I had heard of Carl Sagan; I think he’s a famous science professor. I have to admit
that I didn’t follow it perfectly, but I loved how the apple, in 3-D appears, grows, and disappears when he enters
& leaves Flatland. I was really thinking about what happened when the Square got pulled into 3-dimensions and
sort of missed some of the next part of the clip. But the Square only has a 2-D existence, so how would he even
be able to TALK about visiting the 3rd dimension? It did make me think about ETs and wonder if maybe they are
4-dimensional creatures and that’s why we don’t see them except when they appear and disappear.

LEVEL 2: Survival Listener (Content Connie)

I don’t understand why we were assigned to watch this clip; it doesn’t have anything to do with the class. It makes
sense that the Square couldn’t tell his friends where he had been because his arms are flat too, so he can only
point in directions around himself, not above himself. I was interested in how the cube’s shadow looked like boxes
I used to doodle when I was younger, but he totally lost me when he started talking about a hypercube.

LEVEL 1: Novice Listener (Static Steve)

I had to replay pieces of it a couple of times but it still didn’t make much sense. I loved where he said that the
Square was bonkers; that cracked me up. Carl Sagan has a weird way of talking.

Chapter 8 — Living in the Information Age 217