Thanks, mmille10, for an interesting discussion. I recall an
allegation that ninety percent of everything is crap. Further, I
personally recall that if even ten percent of my classmates were
interested and engaged in any particular class, then it was a
delightful exception to the general rule.
Indeed, it is my understanding, perhaps shallow and incomplete, that
the constructionist/constructivist intent behind OLPC is to counter
that trend toward useless education by getting students engaged in
individual or team projects. With the engagement comes attention and
intention which together make the learning both deeper and broader as
well as very much faster than the typical classroom setting
accomplishes.
One hopes that every level of education fosters a love of reading,
thinking, conversing, and acting in its participants, no matter how
often that turns out not to happen. Literacy, numeracy, and critical
thought all demand bi-directionality. One must not only read but also
write, not only be able to calculate but also choose to calculate
about new topics, not only think and reason but also act in support
of those conclusions.
Otherwise, one is a mere observer without a life of her own worth
living, worth the air breathed and the space taken in the bio-sphere.
Fortunately, in the first world at least, we have convenient access
to tremendous educational resources outside the formal institutions
putatively dedicated to that purpose. That access is exactly what we
hope to spread into and outside of the formal institutions of
education outside the first world, is it not?
No wonder politicians are a bit leery of enthusiastic support for
this effort in their own domains. It could foster uncontrolled
activities by students and even teachers. Pretty scary.
Richard Karpinski, Nitpicker
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Home +1 707-546-6760 Cell +1 707-228-9716
http://cfcl.com/twiki/bin/view/Karpinskips Put "nitpicker" in the subject line to get past my spam filters.
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