Hi Edward! 2008/5/14 Edward Cherlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > Constructionism means at least two different things. > > * One is how the learner constructs knowledge and understanding. This > is universal, and doesn't depend on a teaching technique. But > understanding how people learn suggests how to teach more effectively. > > * The second is that people learn better by doing and making, > particularly collaborative public creation, rather than by theory, > lectures, and book learning. But not any of these to the exclusion of > the others.
I don't mean to be rude, but I think you are confusing Constructivism, which was proposed by Piaget - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory) - with Constructionism, which was proposed by Papert - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructionism_(learning_theory) :-) Here's that confusion of Constructivist and Constructionist made very clear: > my mother studied Piaget in > her college days, majoring in Child Development, and often talked > about him and other Constructivist pioneers. > > The Constructionist point of view says :-) > The biggest question is how to deal with the culture clash that > Constructionism inherently creates. Conventional education treats a > great deal of the dominant culture simply as given, and not to be > questioned. Constructionism requires behaviors that are not valued in > many cultures, such as speaking up with new ideas, or criticizing > received wisdom. > > What do you think, Sirs? Quickly: You are correct to point out the clash between school and education. OLPC has failed to challenge Prussian schooling directly, so it should fall back to providing laptops and unrestricted internet access and let the medium be the message. In depth: I think its important to distinguish between education and schooling :-) Constructionism is synonymous with education, and conventional _schooling_ - Prussian schooling, accurately named - inhibits education. I'd define education as "teaching the way children learn." Prussian schools do not teach the way children learn, and nor are they supposed to. Probably few are familiar with this reference to Prussia, but Prussian schooling is central to the history of the thing. John Taylor Gatto wrote a brief introduction for Harpers in 2003, online at http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm and summarised the 6 functions of Prussian schooling as explained by Alexander Inglis in his 1918 book, "Principles of Secondary Education": -- 8< -- 1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things. 2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force. 3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one. 4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best. 5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain. 6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor. -- 8< -- I tracked down this book and have posted scans at http://dave.lab6.com/acid/dump/2008/innis/ if you want to check the original text. Gatto has made a full explanation of this in his 300,000 word book, "Underground History of American Education," online in full at www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/ So, what can be done about the contradiction between schooling and education? Sell OLPC to the Prussian school systems was either going to be done overtly, only selling to school systems already wanting to throw out the Prussian model, or covertly, selling to Prussian schools and hoping they woudn't realise what was happening until too late. OLPC until a few months ago was taking the former route, and unsuprisingly there are only 500,000 kids in such school systems. Are Negroponte's new plans for OLPC going to uproot Prussian schooling covertly, or are they going to reinforce Prussian school methods? IMO Negroponte has never seriously challenged the principles of secondary education that Innis outlines, and the way that the MIT Media Lab runs is the same as all other technical universities and the same as Prussian universities ran: Serving corporations and state first, learners second. Mario Savio knew the deal. The reason that http://medialabeurope.org/ failed is that the corporations that were funding it, and were meant to get early access to the innovation being incubated there, realised that any kid with a laptop and internet access was capable of the same innovation, and there was no point paying Negroponte for doing something that had become as common as dirt in the developed world. I think McLuhan's ideas of media determinism are spot on; I think its most important to get kids laptops and internet access, which in itself creates a constructionist environment, and worry about the details later. Details like taking a hammer to Prussian schooling and proprietary software are not small, but I think if we get 5 million kids laptops and internet access without overt constructionism and free software, instead of 0.5 million with those things, in 10 years time we'll have many more supporters than we do right now to do "right." I wonder if things would be different if Papert was alive, because he had succeeded at chipping away at Prussian schooling before, afterall - I was taught Logo in my math classes as an 8 year old, 12 year old and 15 year old (I'm now a 25 year old British guy.) But I was given computers with proprietary software (eg, the Logo I used was proprietary) and then I was given internet access, and then I learned about a free society and free software, and defenestrated my computers and am helping my friends do the same. I speak up with new ideas and criticize received wisdom. So I think OLPC has to forget about challenging Prussian schooling and give up on overt Constructionism, like it has given up on overt free software, and let the medium be the message :-) -- Regards, Dave _______________________________________________ Olpc-open mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-open
