This is possibly the worst article I've ever read on education. The 
problem is not that there isn't a grain of truth to it, but rather that 
its conclusions only loosely follow from the observations.

One of the posters to the discussion is upset that after having learning 
IT in school that his kid can't install Eudora. I'm so glad that people 
can agree that math with its logic and elegance is important, while 
the important part of computing is being able to install software. The 
computer revolution clearly hasn't reached these people yet.

Let me give you another perspective on "Americans" who supposedly can't 
compete in math: mine. In high school, I was involved in mathematics 
competition, etc. I even placed second at a national math competition. 
Now, I get a B in computational theory. Why? The writer of the article 
would probably claim that I don't have the necessary appreciation for 
mathematics, since I went to an American school. Unfortunately, that is 
not the case at all. It simply pains me to do computational theory, 
because I don't see it as useful. I don't care about graphs. I don't care 
about infinite tapes. The reason I took the class is because it is a 
requirement. That's it. IMNSHO, that I am unmotivated by things I see as 
useless is a positive thing. That I can even judge that for me these 
things are useless is a positive thing.

I hope that the point of school isn't to make you appreciate useless 
and tedious things. Math is fun. Math is useful. Math is challenging, but 
that also makes it fun. Math is not learning the multiplication tables. 
Math is learning about negative numbers, learning about fractions, 
algebra, geometry, economics, etc. These things are so cool, because you 
see them in life. You may have to learn the multiplication tables in 
order to be able to use multiplication, but it is multiplication that is 
important and NOT learning the multiplication table.

Computing environments like Logo, Boxer, and Squeak do not make math fun; 
they make it accessible. Accessible math is fun. I agree that goofy 
characters that help sugarcoat the multiplication tables are fairly 
naive, but that is hardly an argument against all educational software.

Peace and Luck!

Je77

On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 08:34:38AM +0200, Karl Ramberg wrote:
> I read this at www.osopinion.com: Tech Toys Won't Save America's Schools
> http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/9964.html
> Karl