squeakland November 2007

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33 participants
43 discussions

Re: [Squeakland] Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by Alan Kay 25 Nov '07

25 Nov '07

Hi David -- At 02:25 AM 11/24/2007, David Corking wrote: >Hi Alan, You digressed into 'new math' and I disagree > >You wrote: > > > > Separate issues are: what parts of the real stuff should be taught to > > children, how should the teaching be done, etc. This is very important in > > its own right - recall the very bad choices made by real > mathematicians when > > they chose set theory, numerals as short-hand for polynomials, etc. during > > the "new math" debacle. > >When I was 16 I moved schools, and joined a cohort who had been >educated in the Schools Mathematics Project, a English incarnation of >'new math'. I had kind of a traditional classical math education up >to that point, and I felt like a fish out of water for a few weeks. >My first impression was that my new classmates thought much more like >real mathematicians, and at first that seemed like a pointless stuffy >homage to academia. Of course, I was referring to elementary school new math in the US, which tried to teach arithmetic via set theory and polynomial bases for different numeral systems. It would not be at all surprising if the SMP were better. The point is not about the worth of set theory and number theory (both good topics for high school) but about whether they are appropriate for younger children. I have degrees in both pure math and molecular biology, and I agree very strongly with Papert's view that various kinds of geometrical thinking, especially incremental, are better set up for children's minds, and also allow deeper mathematical thinking to be started much earlier in life. One way to think about this is that "mathematical thinking" (like musical thinking) is somewhat separate from particular topics - so the idea is to choose the most felicitous ones. >Later I learned to enjoy the math for its own sake, but I had another >surprise a couple of years later. The SMP kids seemed much better >equipped for the world of applied math at university and technical >college. Set theory and number theory are vital for computer >scientists (as I understand), matrix algebra and numerical methods for >engineers. So when I got to college (to study engineering), I was >glad to have had a chance to try my hand at real nineteenth century >math in high school. > >By the way, I never learned, even today, any kind of general algebra >or shorthand for polynomials, so I cannot comment on that. I think you did, since "356" and all other numeral forms of numbers (whatever their base) are shorthands for polynomials (the 3, 4, and 6 are the coefficients for polynomials of powers of ten in this case). >It didn't hurt that in those days, most math teachers in England were >math major graduates (so perhaps an example of the benefits of the >Hawthorne effect we discussed.) Why call this Hawthorne? I don't think this is what you mean here. Cheers, Alan >By the way, the SMP still exists in a cut down form: >http://www.smpmaths.org.uk/ >It didn't go down in a public fireball like 'new math' in the US, but >instead seems to have been quietly squashed by the all powerful >National Curriculum steamroller. > >Best, David

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Re: [Squeakland] Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by Alan Kay 24 Nov '07

24 Nov '07

Thanks Bill -- I think you make the central point about all this. Cheers, Alan ---------- At 05:53 AM 11/24/2007, Bill Kerr wrote: >David: >>Further, but perhaps drifting off topic for squeakland, is it provable >>that 'back to basics' and 'progressivism' are equally as inadequate? >Alan: >I said above that the simplistic versions of both are quite >wrongheaded in my opinion. If you don't understand mathematics, then >it doesn't matter what your educational persuasion might be -- the >odds are greatly in favor that it will be quite misinterpreted. > > >David, > >I read the original maths history ><http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html>http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html >that prompted your initial questions about constructivism and agree >that it critiques the cluster of overlapping outlooks that go under >the names of progressivism / discovery learning / constructivism - >fuzzy descriptors > >But more importantly IMO it also takes the position that the >dichotomy b/w "back to basics" and "conceptual understandings" is a >bogus one. ie. that you need a solid foundation to build conceptual >understandings. The problem here is that some people in the name of >constructivism have argued that some basics are not accessible to >children. (refer to the H Wu paper cited at the bottom of this post) > >I think the issue is that real mathematicians who also understand >children development ought to be the ones working out the curriculum >guidelines. This would exclude those who understand children >development in some other field but who are not real mathematicians >and would also exclude those who understand maths deeply but not >children development. > >This has not been our experience in Australia. I cited a book in an >earlier discussion by 2 outstanding maths educators documenting how >their input into curriculum development was sidelined. National >Curriculum Debacle by Clements and Ellerton ><http://squeakland.org/pipermail/squeakland/2007-August/003741.html>http://squeakland.org/pipermail/squeakland/2007-August/003741.html >For some reason the way curriculum is written excludes the people >who would be able to write a good curriculum -> those with both >subject and child development expertise > >For me the key section of the history was this: >"Sifting through the claims and counterclaims, journalists of the >1990s tended to portray the math wars as an extended disagreement >between those who wanted basic skills versus those who favored >conceptual understanding of mathematics. The parents and >mathematicians who criticized the NCTM aligned curricula were >portrayed as proponents of basic skills, while educational >administrators, professors of education, and other defenders of >these programs, were portrayed as proponents of conceptual >understanding, and sometimes even "higher order thinking." This >dichotomy is implausible. The parents leading the opposition to the >NCTM Standards, as discussed below, had considerable expertise in >mathematics, generally exceeding that of the education >professionals. This was even more the case of the large number of >mathematicians who criticized these programs. Among them were some >of the world's most distinguished mathematicians, in some cases with >mathematical capabilities near the very limits of human ability. By >contrast, many of the education professionals who spoke of >"conceptual understanding" lacked even a rudimentary knowledge of mathematics. > >More fundamentally, the separation of conceptual understanding from >basic skills in mathematics is misguided. It is not possible to >teach conceptual understanding in mathematics without the supporting >basic skills, and basic skills are weakened by a lack of >understanding. The essential connection between basic skills and >understanding of concepts in mathematics was perhaps most eloquently >explained by U.C. Berkeley mathematician Hung-Hsi Wu in his paper, >Basic Skills Versus Conceptual Understanding: A Bogus Dichotomy in >Mathematics Education.75" > >Papert is also critical of NCTM but is clearly both a good >mathematician and someone who understands child development - and >has put himself into the constructivist / constructionist group > >I followed that link in the history to this paper which is a more >direct and concrete critique of discovery learning taken too far, >with well explained examples of different approaches: > ><http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/fall99/wu.pdf>http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/fall99/wu.pdf > >BASIC SKILLS VERSUS CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING >A Bogus Dichotomy in Mathematics Education >BY H. WU > >cheers, >-- >Bill Kerr ><http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/>http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/

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Educational research
by Richard Karpinski 24 Nov '07

24 Nov '07

Sorry I can't cite the papers, but I recall that hardly any computer based projects in elementary education had any noticeable beneficial effect. This is what I would expect for any normal two or three hours per week computer use in school. The OLPC project, however gives the kid a computer full time, and she has to use it just to read the textbook. Still, that's no pedagogic help until you add the camera and the collaboration capabilities. Suddenly, the computer is a mere tool to assist with a serious activity involving the student and engaging her mind and body. This is where I would expect a real effect, not by the presence of a computer, per se, but by the research and the process of developing a school report. It's the engagement that matters. Of course, that's opinion, not science. The experiment is called OLPC. The results are still out. And double blind is not an option, but real science is. No matter how you try to manage it, there will be differences in approach and differences in outcomes. Just look at what correlates. Schools do a lot of testing, but how well that measures the outcomes in fact remains open to question. Incidentally, there was one year when the remote Stanford students actually did better than the ones on campus. Naturally they changed it immediately. The remote students had these advantages over the on- campus students: The VCR delivery of the lectures allowed the remote students to back up the tape to catch any missed phrase or whatever, and the teaching assistant that arrived with the cassette was happy to answer any student question, which could not have been asked in the lecture hall. If some OLPC teachers can act like the teaching assistants and some course material can be provided as videos to be played on student laptops, perhaps that Stanford experience could be replicated. Still, I'm much more interested in the class project approach. Dick On 2007, Nov 21, , at 12:00, squeakland-request(a)squeakland.org wrote: > However, beyond such material, I get thoroughly confused by an > inability to distinguish proven knowledge, accepted wisdom, and pure > pseudo-science. It seems that a lot of educational research is done > by anecdote rather than by controlled blind large group studies. Any > pointers to the good stuff?

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Re: [Squeakland] Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by Alan Kay 24 Nov '07

24 Nov '07

Here's what we did for City Building, Playground, and then Etoys (I've written about this before, but I don't think on this thread). "City Building" is a wonderful (at that time non-computer) curriculum designed by Doreen Nelson that is very rich and has been used successfully for many age ranges - in our case we implemented it with Doreen's help for 3rd graders - which was the youngest group tried up to that point. Google Doreen and "City Building" for a wealth of info on this terrific curriculum design. Playground was a different way to do Etoys (similar graphics model and a different programming model). This was implemented in a grade 4-5 classroom (the school didn't have grades by age, but "clusters" by developmental level - which works a lot better). Doreen helped in every step of introducing "City Building" to very willing "3rd grade" teachers. Still, it took 3 years before the deep quality in the curriculum was manifest in the classroom and in the students and what they did and how they did it. Photographs of each of the three years would not reveal much visible difference. It was what the children were concerned with, how they talked about it, and how they went about the processes that changed profoundly. Trying to trace all this back into "what happened?" we came to the inescapable (and not too surprising) conclusion that the teachers had also changed -- they had learned much more about design and systems over the three years, and this was manifested in a "well above threshold" assessment from Doreen and the rest of us in the 3rd year. It's worth noting that assessments of fluency do not require control groups because what is being judged is not a teaching method or a curriculum per se, but results. Were the children doing deep "City Building"? No for the first two tries, Yes from the 3rd try onwards. Similarly, "are the children doing real math and real science or not?" Questions like these are easily answered by people who can tell the difference (just as musicians and coaches can assess their learners for degrees of fluency). The City Building experience and our long stay in this school allowed us to try the same multiple year assessment for Playground programming and its curriculum (with similar results). Basically, there are just a lot of things that don't get normalized in single trials of even worthwhile curriculum ideas that get smoothed out over a few years. The teacher gets more knowledgeable and confident. The curriculum is improved from some of the bugs found. The software often requires tons of work over the three years before it is above threshold, etc. When we started on Etoys 10 years ago, we had the three year trial in mind, and decided that all the initial curriculum would be tested over three years before we wrote it up (the substance of Kim's and BJ's book "Powerful Ideas in the Classroom" is about a dozen projects, each of which was tested over three years). What we don't know from this methodology is whether there are better ways to teach Etoys and the math and science powerful ideas in these examples. And we don't know whether the choices of the math and science examples are the most appropriate. But what we do know is that the processes of their book are highly likely to result in more than 90% of a class of children getting fluent in what's in the book, and that includes strong elements of differential vector geometry, acceleration and Galilean gravity, etc. This leads to interesting arguments, especially wrt young children, of the kind "if you can get 10-11 year olds to do real math and real science, then it doesn't much matter what the specific subject matter is". And "if the specific subject matter can be strongly related to adult uses and thinking about real math and real science, then all the better". This bypasses the much more difficult problems of taking a given theory of subject matter (school maths, etc.) and trying to contrast different ways of teaching it. We do not do that at all, and the Etoys work was done as part of "science time" in these classrooms (a great place to teach real math given the difficulties with the school math goals and processes). The main point here is that above threshold fluency for 90%+ of the children is one of the most important benchmarks -- and it can be done a little more easily than trying to use specific control groups if the subject matter is very different from school theories, yet still recognizable by experts. A side comment. The reactions against "the new" take partial form in demands for "super scientific studies", and most of these are simply not feasible, if our "three years for a good experiment" is valid. But the largest most devastating studies in the US are the "whole country" results that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the existing educational process is not resulting in more than a small percentage of children getting above acceptable thresholds in reading, writing, math and science (and thinking). This is the problem they don't want to even discuss. Contrastive studies are not interesting unless both are above threshold. If neither are, back to the drawing board. If one is, then a more detailed contrast is of little value. Cheers, Alan -------------------- At 05:29 PM 11/22/2007, David Corking wrote: >Tony Forster wrote: > > > Controlled blind large studies are rarely done. This is because the lab > > rabbits are real kids and there are real ethical concerns. We are > stuck with > > anecdote and assertion for the large part. We need to critically > examine all > > this, as there is little hard evidence. > >For better or for worse, our society uses real kids for blind (and >even double blind) trials of medical treatments. > >The ethics of a pendulum swinging from 'new math' to 'new new math' to >'back to basics' and on, based each time on anecdote, are, to the >naive observer, as great a cause for concern as giving two matched >groups of children differing curricula for a couple of years. Perhaps >saying that ruins my chances of influencing education, but instead of >advocating such trials, and dismissing current research methods, my >next step is to understand how, as a society, we should interpret an >anecdotal study. > >What are the benchmarks a study must meet to be considered good >evidence to support making a change (to the learning environment, the >learning methods, and even the learning objectives, or even just to an >individual lesson plan?) Educators like yourself work hard on these >studies to get them through peer review, or incorporated in government >policy, and often aim for to be utterly dispassionate. So, how >should a concerned parent (or administrator or politician) work with >teachers in their community to separate the wheat from the chaff. > >_______________________________________________ >Squeakland mailing list >Squeakland(a)squeakland.org >http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

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Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by Tony Forster 23 Nov '07

23 Nov '07

> However, beyond such material, I get thoroughly confused by an > inability to distinguish proven knowledge, accepted wisdom, and pure > pseudo-science. It seems that a lot of educational research is done > by anecdote rather than by controlled blind large group studies. Thanks Mark for initiating this thread. There needs to be more discussion of the pedagogy so that Squeak/etoys can be optimised as a learning tool. For more criticism of Constructivism/ionism you could also read (though I strongly support constructionism): http://scil.stanford.edu/about/staff/bios/PDF/Cog_Effects_Prog (will open with Acrobat) ON THE COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF LEARNING COMPUTER PROGRAMMING ROY D. PEA and D. MIDIAN KURLAND and http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching Paul A. Kirschner Controlled blind large studies are rarely done. This is because the lab rabbits are real kids and there are real ethical concerns. We are stuck with anecdote and assertion for the large part. We need to critically examine all this, as there is little hard evidence. It would be good if we could examine the large amount of teaching with Game Maker. It has been used back to 2002 and, at least in Australia, there are hundreds of schools using it. The pedagogy of Game Maker and etoys is similar. This large body of data has never been properly examined because it is just ad hoc use by teachers which has never been attached to a university research program Tony

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Re: [Squeakland] Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by mmille10＠comcast.net 22 Nov '07

22 Nov '07

David- Re: Constructivism, where to start? I'm not real clear myself where it came from. My introduction to it was reading up on Kay's vision for educational computing, and watching some presentations of his on the same topic. Citing some things from the article you referenced. I didn't read the whole thing. I was primarily interested in the section on constructivism: "Included on the list for decreased attention in the grades K-4 were 'Complex paper-and-pencil computations,' 'Long division,' 'Paper and pencil fraction computation,' 'Use of rounding to estimate,' 'Rote practice,' 'Rote memorization of rules,' and 'Teaching by telling.' For grades 5-8 the Standards were even more radical. The following were included on the list to be de-emphasized: 'Relying on outside authority (teacher or an answer key),' 'Manipulating symbols,' 'Memorizing rules and algorithms,' 'Practicing tedious paper-and-pencil computations,' 'Finding exact forms of answers.' ... The variant of progressivism favored by the NCTM during this time was called 'constructivism' and the NCTM Standards were promoted under this banner." Some of what's described here is what I've been hearing about through other venues. The only characteristic that was news to me was the de-emphasizing of "manipulating symbols". Wow. Does this mean they weren't going to teach algebra somewhere in grades 5-8? One of the benefits I've heard about for learning advanced math, even it is by rote learning of algorithms or rules, even if the student never uses it again, is it at least teaches symbol manipulation and logical thinking. I get the sense with the way that various reform efforts have played out though is they've thrown the baby out with the bathwater, or maybe the "baby" wasn't there to begin with and the reform methods just expose that more. There was a fairly recent video I saw by M. J. McDermott, a meteorologist, expressing her concern about the state of math education in Washington State's public schools (at http://www.youtube.com/v/Tr1qee-bTZI). She said that when she went back to school to become a meteorologist she noticed a lot of the freshmen were struggling with the math that was being used. She also heard complaints from professors about this. She attributed it to a lack of basic mathematical knowledge, and made her own determination that it was the "new math" they were learning in the public schools. She said that all they knew how to do was use calculators, and work in groups. She spends most of the video demonstrating the new methods they're using for multiplication and division, both t he "reasoning" and algorithmic methods. I agree with the "reasoning" cluster problems approach, because I've developed similar methods for "calculating in my head", but the algorithmic ones seemed overly complicated. Personally I'd prefer the standard algorithms to the new ones. I get the sense she missed the boat in her emphasis on these methods. I think the real deficiency she was noticing was the lack of ability in symbolic computation, which she only mentions. She said the students lacked understanding of algebra and trigonometry. This is probably because they just let their calculators do it. The ones that most students have access to now can even solve Calculus problems, I think. I happened to look at the comments for this video on YouTube and I found that people were calling what McDermott was describing "constructivist" education, though she doesn't use this label. Whether that's an accurate label or not, that's people's impression of it. As I researched constructivism some more, it began to sound like teaching methods that have been discredited, such as "whole reading" and "whole math", particularly the discovery aspect. I happened upon a couple of old articles by Lynne Cheney (yes, the wife of the current Vice President), back when she was Chair of the Endowment for the Humanities. She harshly criticized constructivism, associating it with these methods. I can't find the original article now, but I remember one where she talked about an instance in a "whole math" course where the kids were supposed to be learning about the Pythagorean Theorem. They were expected to create a right-triangle out of 3 rectangles of graph paper of different sizes (the triangle is the space created by the rectangles placed at different angles to each other). The goal was to get the kids to see the relationship between the rectangles, representing "squared" values. A few would understand that the combination (sum) of two of the smaller s quares was equal to the area of the largest square, realizing the proof of the theorem: a^2 + b^2 = c^2. The teachers thought they were not supposed to say that any student's result was wrong for fear of damaging their self-esteem, and since this was the case there was no follow-up for those who didn't get it. What this appeared to create was classrooms with lazy teachers, because they barely played a role in the students' education. She said that in that particular classroom, when the students were later tested on their knowledge of this theorem, most didn't understand it. I found a counterpoint to Cheney's article at http://www.mathforum.org/kb/plaintext.jspa?messageID=712380 from Tim Craine, an education professor who taught geometry. My read of his analysis is it's likely the problem with the classroom Cheney described was due to the teachers not following through. He doesn't say it, but I think what he means is it takes a teacher who's fluent in math and cares about educating kids to really make this exercise work. He agrees with something I've thought about, which is once a student has made their discovery, the teacher can come in and help the student analyze it, so they can see the implications. The phrase that came to mind is, "Once you've got something, understand what you really have." Quoting from Craine: "These discoveries, however, cannot be left to chance, but are more likely to take place under the guidance of a teacher. Contrary to Gardner's assertion, cooperative learning does not imply that children receive 'no help' from the teacher, nor that there are 'winners' who discover what they are supposed to and 'losers' who don't. A skilled teacher guides the entire class in a discussion of what they have observed and in formulating the appropriate generalizations." It's looking like what is probably also a problem is something Alan Kay has talked about just generally with math and science teachers, which is that many are not fluent in math or science, and further have an aversion to it. I had the thought today that perhaps one reason why rote methods are used is that the teachers don't have to understand it to present it and make it look like they're teaching something. And maybe some students get the material anyway, though they'd probably do just as well not having such a teacher and just reading the math text. What's apparent to me as I've done a little more research into this to write my response here is it appears constructivism can be misapplied in unskilled hands. Personally I agree with what I've heard about constructivism from Kay, since I always learned best through doing. I remember that I always did better in science classes where we frequently did labs. I think that's one reason why I liked computer programming and later computer science so much. I spent some time thinking and theorizing about computing, but it was mostly hands-on work. Re: It seems like education is largely done by anecdote, rather than scientific research In terms of scientific education studies, I don't know of any either. There may be some scientific studies on cognition, which would relate well to education. I imagine they would be more general, just focusing on how the mind understands concepts, learns them, thinks about them, etc., not specific to certain areas like math and science. There may be some that are specific to language, for example. ---Mark mmille10(a)comcast.net >Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:32:37 +0000 >From: "David Corking" <lists(a)dcorking.com> >Subject: Re: [Squeakland] Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be > Opened? >To: squeakland(a)squeakland.org >Message-ID: > <f7a24bea0711210932l68da94f3y194ae1d0ae13df14(a)mail.gmail.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > >Mark wrote: > >> Re: attempts with constructivism >> >> I hope you're right. I have heard criticisms of constructivism, based on >> anecdotes, but I've always wondered whether what's been evaluated is >> actually constructivism or just some group's ideological interpretation of >> it (the group that says they're implementing the pedagogy, that is). I >> haven't studied it in detail, but the ideas behind it, as presented by Kay, >> make sense to me. > >I think it is worth studying in detail, but I am not sure where to >start. First I think we need to learn to distinguish among > >1. constructivism the psychological hypothesis - as proposed by Piaget >as I understand >2. constructivism the pedagogy >3. constructionism - another pedagogy - and a word coined by Seymour >Papert. Note the 3rd syllable. > >(There is also constructivism the epistemology, which I can't even >spell, that also originates with Piaget.) > >I recently read this unsympathetic 2003 article on the US history of >constructivist pedagogy in maths >http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html >But it is largely anecdotal (which is fine for a historian, but not >when we are responsible for the education of the next generation.) > >However, beyond such material, I get thoroughly confused by an >inability to distinguish proven knowledge, accepted wisdom, and pure >pseudo-science. It seems that a lot of educational research is done >by anecdote rather than by controlled blind large group studies. Any >pointers to the good stuff? Or tips to help a natural scientist to >understand the research methods of the social sciences?

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Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by mmille10＠comcast.net 22 Nov '07

22 Nov '07

"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." Now that you mention it, this sounds true. I was reflecting recently on the idea of schools as cartels. That term was used in the panel discussion, but I'm using it in a bit of a different way. I wondered what if we could have free market access, as it were, to the teachers who taught what we wanted to learn, in the way that best suited us? The way many schools have operated is as a "package deal". To become a student you've had to consent to buy in to the whole program, even if there are probably only a few exceptional teachers in it. The only schools I've seen that seem to give you the freedom to take a class here and there are community colleges. At the university level there is the possibility of transfers, but it seems to me this process is hindered by whether one school will give you credit for a course taken at another. If the curriculums diverge this becomes a challenge. The systems are oriented towards school as an institution, though they've had distance-learning programs so it feels a bit less site-based. I imagine if an enterprising student were to try to pick and choose their teachers from different schools now for what they'd need to satisfy a degree they might be able to do it, but it would be time-consuming. Unless they were on-site they wouldn't get the interactivity, either. There have been visions of "remote lectures" put forward, where distance learners could be part of live lectures, be a part of the class discussion, etc. So far I haven't seen this play out. Re: attempts with constructivism I hope you're right. I have heard criticisms of constructivism, based on anecdotes, but I've always wondered whether what's been evaluated is actually constructivism or just some group's ideological interpretation of it (the group that says they're implementing the pedagogy, that is). I haven't studied it in detail, but the ideas behind it, as presented by Kay, make sense to me. ---Mark mmille10(a)comcast.net -------------- Original message -------------- > Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:44:36 -0800 > From: Richard Karpinski > Subject: [Squeakland] Re:Can the American Mind be Opened? > To: squeakland(a)squeakland.org > > 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 attenti on 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 ins titutions > 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 dick(a)cfcl.com > 148 Sequoia Circle, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 > Home +1 707-546-6760 Cell +1 707-228-9716 > http://cfcl.com/twiki/bin/view/Karpinski > > ps Put "nitpicker" in the subject line to get past my spam filters.

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Re: [Squeakland] Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by Alan Kay 22 Nov '07

22 Nov '07

Hi David -- I think "constructivism" (like "object-oriented") has been so appropriated and redefined as to be a useless term today (I certainly don't know what it means -- and am not sure I ever did). I think it's much better to simply try to puzzle out the nature of the desired learning, and then to find workable pathways for the different kinds of learners. This has been done quite well in (admittedly simpler) areas like sports and music, where the learner has the distinct advantage of being able to watch practitioners and gain some idea of what the subject area is all about and what might be fun and rewarding about it. Two of the biggest barriers to math and science learner are (a) the prospective learner has very little idea what the activities actually are (though they still might think they could be "cool" because of "rocket ships", etc.), and (b) there are so few real practitioners around (available) to help give them a sense of how to get started. Schools (and many adults) introduce another barrier, which is a profound misunderstanding of what it means to be fluent in math and science (the misunderstanding is usually in the form of thinking that math and science are fact and pattern based, and that learning the facts and the patterns is what is required). I've used the " 'music appreciation' instead of 'music' " analogy for this misunderstanding. Once we get some sense of what "the doing of math and science" is all about, the main question remaining is "for learners, what is the best balance between doing and being advised that should be set up?". This is pretty well understood for sports and music for both children and adults. As Tim Gallwey once said about teaching tennis: "the main problem with traditional tennis teaching is that the parts of your mind that learn to play tennis don't understand English!" (Of course he meant that a little English goes a long way, and a lot of English simply can't be translated into tennis action.) It is almost certainly the case that different subject matters (and different learners) can tolerate more or less of direct instruction in English, so it is worthwhile to get a rough assessment of this when trying to invent a curriculum. However, I don't think it is controversial to state that learning to play music or tennis is really about lots of actual guided and coached (and uncoached) doing of the activities. Most mathematicians would agree about math learning, and most scientists would agree about science learning. If we look at human history, we can see that "pure discovery" learning by children or adults usually results in weak ideas. On the other hand, rote learning usually doesn't work very well for any subject that has some art to it. (Playing lots of scales or memorizing chord progressions does not a musician make.) So there has to be discovery and creativity of a sort, and this is done by good teachers and writers as a kind of "guided discovery" (sometimes by great environmental design as in classic Montessori education). Perhaps the most wonderful thing about human learning is that something that required a genius to invent or discover (like calculus) can very often be learned by non-geniuses if given help. One of the best accomplishments of the Etoys work over the years (and reaching back to Seymour) is that, while no 10 year old has ever invented calculus, we now know how to help most 10 year olds get fluent in a number of the most important ideas in calculus. This is real progress. I think science is the most difficult of the "new thinking" to teach and learn because it is the farthest from normal commonsense perception and thinking. It is also the most critical of human reason because the nice crisp logic of math is only approximately mapped to considerations of the actual universe (it doesn't have to work like our current math or brains). So just what "doing science" should mean for children is not nearly as clear as for sports, music or math. I think that the "Galilean Gravity" project that is done so well by 5th graders is an excellent example of one of the "real science" activities children should be doing. But I would be surprised if it and projects like it are comprehensive enough to cover all that is needed. Part of the internalizing of the epistemology of science seems to come from so many examples from so many parts of science that show "the world is not as it seems", but also allow some pretty powerful generalizations to be drawn about many of the non-intuitive workings of the universe. One of the paradoxes about many kinds of learning is that you can learn a lot about a subject by reading after you have learned the subject pretty well by lots of doing. But the subjects we've been discussing are not often (if ever) learned above threshold without lots of doing to provide a foundation of deep understanding for later listening and reading. Cheers, Alan At 09:32 AM 11/21/2007, David Corking wrote: >Mark wrote: > > > Re: attempts with constructivism > > > > I hope you're right. I have heard criticisms of constructivism, based on > > anecdotes, but I've always wondered whether what's been evaluated is > > actually constructivism or just some group's ideological interpretation of > > it (the group that says they're implementing the pedagogy, that is). I > > haven't studied it in detail, but the ideas behind it, as presented by Kay, > > make sense to me. > >I think it is worth studying in detail, but I am not sure where to >start. First I think we need to learn to distinguish among > >1. constructivism the psychological hypothesis - as proposed by Piaget >as I understand >2. constructivism the pedagogy >3. constructionism - another pedagogy - and a word coined by Seymour >Papert. Note the 3rd syllable. > >(There is also constructivism the epistemology, which I can't even >spell, that also originates with Piaget.) > >I recently read this unsympathetic 2003 article on the US history of >constructivist pedagogy in maths >http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html >But it is largely anecdotal (which is fine for a historian, but not >when we are responsible for the education of the next generation.) > >However, beyond such material, I get thoroughly confused by an >inability to distinguish proven knowledge, accepted wisdom, and pure >pseudo-science. It seems that a lot of educational research is done >by anecdote rather than by controlled blind large group studies. Any >pointers to the good stuff? Or tips to help a natural scientist to >understand the research methods of the social sciences? > >_______________________________________________ >Squeakland mailing list >Squeakland(a)squeakland.org >http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

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Panel discussion: Can the American Mind be Opened?
by mmille10＠comcast.net 22 Nov '07

22 Nov '07

Hello folks. I found a good panel discussion on C-SPAN's BookTV (at http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=8828&SectionName=&PlayMedia=No) that I thought would be of interest. It was called "Can the American Mind be Opened?" The inspiration for the discussion was the 20th anniversary of the publishing of Allan Bloom's book, "The Closing of the American Mind". You can watch streaming video of the discussion at the URL. You'll need RealPlayer. It is an adult discussion and there is a mature subject discussed briefly, so I would not encourage children to watch it. Unfortunately I can't say how long they'll keep the video up on their site. They keep some videos on there for years. Others disappear after a few months. I thought I'd share some of the discussion here (excerpts, I've sanitized it). It kind of relates to a discussion we had earlier with Bill Kerr on the subject of teaching the non-universals, except the focus is on the university level. I think some of the issues discussed will dovetail with that discussion. The focus was on the problematic state of the arts and humanities. They also discussed a couple solutions, which it sounds like have had mixed results so far. It sounds in parts like they're painting universities with a broad brush, but they're specifically talking about arts and humanities (A&H). The event was sponsored by the Manhattan Institute. It took place in early October. I tried to get the quotes as close to correct as possible, but I may have messed up a bit on the wording. Heather MacDonald, co-author of "The Immigration Solution", was the first speaker. She said that the predominant characteristic of today's universities (A&H) was narcissism. She pinned this down as the main cause of the decline in the teaching of Western culture. She said: "Professors have made whole disciplines out of the shallow material of their own self, defined exclusively along a single axis . . . Predictably students have absorbed the lesson that college is about their own narrowly defined identity, not about exposure to greatness and beauty far beyond their puny selves." She quoted Allan Bloom: "When a university refuses to think about the content of liberal education, all the vulgarities of the outer world will flourish in it. Those who had the power to stop it didn't care, and those who cared didn't have the power." She said alumni, along with the Manhattan Institute have figured out a way to reintroduce serious scholarship to campus, called the VERITAS Fund. "It provides independent support for professors who understand that their primary obligation is to expose students to the monuments of Western thought and expression without the gloss of self-indulgent political posturing." Talking about professors who teach under the aegis of VERITAS she said, "If they have tenure, a pot of money separate from the university budget, and administration support, they can create exciting courses in such taboo books as 'The Federalist Papers' or 'The Wealth of Nations', and even sometimes recruit faculty to teach them. Robbie George's James Madison program at American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton, funded exclusively by alumni and foundations, is the flagship of all such 'cartel busters'. It focuses on constitutional law and political thought, and by many accounts it has changed the intellectual climate at Princeton . . . VERITAS has taken this model and applied it to other campuses." "Now, please don't think that creating such outposts of non-political learning is easy. Indeed, in the early planning stages the architects may as well be developing a center for creating Anthrax. So secretive must be their efforts. An Ivy League government professor was looking into starting a similar program on American democracy at his campus, and he begged me to keep the effort secret, because otherwise the campus feminists would destroy it. His concerns were, of course, justified. In 1995 you may remember the Yale faculty torpedoed a $20 million grant from Lee Bass to strengthen Yale's Western Civilization curriculum. As one Yale history professor put it, 'The chief export of Western civilization is violence.' . . . Recently, the faculty at Hamilton College in New York tried to create an alumni-funded center for the study of Western civilization, and the faculty brought that one down. Well what was this toxic mission that so antagonized the faculty? The study of the origins of freedom, democracy, and capitalism. Now, even when a program is up and running its directors may still have to operate with stealth, like the early Christians huddling in the catacombs. There's an alumnus funded program at Duke University . . . with the mysterious title 'The Girst Program in Political, Economic, and Humanistic Studies'. It's about the great books, but why the indirection of the title? Well because the program wouldn't have been approved if it used the words 'Western Culture' in its title, the director says . . . The paranoid secrecy in which reformists must work is the clearest proof of how desperately academia needs to change. And that change will come about only if alumni get smarter about giving." She went on to say that most alumni "beyond a certain age" continue to give generously to their alma maters, despite these problems, which effectively nullifies any boycotts by concerned alums. "Committed alumni have an alternative. They can inquire about supporting classically-oriented faculty on their campuses, if any still exist. And if their overture is rebuffed, they should direct their giving to professors elsewhere who are committed to non-ideological teaching, whether directly, or through the VERITAS Fund." She said VERITAS is not trying to shut down the other programs. It's merely trying to give students a choice. "Note as well there is no infringement on academic freedom, though the anti-Humanist faculty will desperately scream that there is to shut down such distasteful student topics as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes." "This movement to restore attention to the classics may start a revolution. Already professors who still believe in non-narcissistic scholarship are starting to come out of the closet, and are organizing. They're creating principles. They're forming consortia. And the Hamilton College facility that I mentioned has just simply moved off campus. It's still going on. It's not the ideal solution, but there's still hope there." After decrying the state of cultural education at our universities she offered this analysis: "Try as I might I can no longer by a cultural declinist. I've tried two types of utilitarian justifications offered today for the university. One is the health of a democracy depends on an educated citizenry . . . And we've also heard that we need to teach students how to lead the good life. I find neither of those explanations persuasive. The ignorance of today's students, and indeed of today's society is undeniable. The cultural rot that Mark Steyn so powerfully described is undeniable. And yet, try as I might, I cannot see that our democracy is suffering. It's a paradox. I can't explain it. Perhaps some of you can. I find democratic debate is healthy. The technology, innovation, economic innovation is thriving. Our ignorance should matter, yet it seems not to! Nobody has greater contempt for the ugliness of popular culture. I wish we could all live in the Hapsburg Empire and be blessed with Mozart, and Haydn, turning out oratorios and operas, but it's not happening. And yet for every Jay-Z CD, I have to notice that I can buy every single Vivaldi opera on Amazon like that [she snaps her fingers]. I have more classical music, which is my source of life, available to me today than any composer in human history. So somehow despite our grotesque ignorance things are going very, very well in my view. So I come to the most difficult argument to make of all for what I think the university should be, and it is completely non-utilitarian. It should be about the debt that we owe the past for strewing in our laps beauties that we cannot possibly hope to merit. We have an absolute duty towards these geniu ses. My ideal university would be constituted by love for the gorgeousness that poets, composers, philosophers, and painters have given us." Perhaps as Alan Kay has spoken of in the culture of computing, the cultural decline is on the micro level instead of on the macro level. Perhaps the decay is imperceptible to someone like MacDonald. I'd be interested in hearing/reading other views on this. In terms of her democracy argument, I would guess the reason for this is that democracy is still taught in basic ways in the public schools, and in social life. So the children are already socialized in it by the time they reach college. What they probably won't understand, unless they've been specifically taught it of course, are the ideas of a republic, Natural Law, duties that go along with rights, and the more complex dynamics of democracy like competing interests and compromise. I've seen evidence to support this position. IMO all one has to do is look at the turmoil and accusations that came out of the 2000 presidential election to see that. This is but one example (and it's happened before, more than a hundred years ago). Fortunately we've managed to stay in one piece despite these misunderstandings. There may be enough people who choose to learn on their own what they did not learn in college--a behavior of self-improvement--that we maintain our cultural understanding despite the lack of acculturation in college. There are plenty of Americans who travel abroad. That in itself is educational, or at least the beginning of an education, for those who are open-minded. I found MacDonald's "we're doing well despite our ignorance" analysis interesting. On a certain level I think she's right, but I wonder if she's looked deeply enough at the issue. According to the panel these problems in A&H have only been showing up in the last 25 years. Perhaps the effects of this are delayed, hidden below the surface of our apparent societal health for now. I think what is a crying shame, if nothing else, is that people can receive such a low quality education by majoring in A&H at our country's top universities, and yet pay such a high price for it. They're being ripped off. Peter Berkowitz, the author of "The Future of American Intelligence" spoke next. He talked about a research assistant that worked with him. She asked if he would do things differently than the then-current curriculum at the university where he worked. He said yes, and laid out a core curriculum that he would like to see: classics, foreign languages, etc. He said he thought it would be reasonable to expect that a student could complete it in two years. He said: "With barely suppressed indignation, and perfect lack of irony, she asked, 'But who is the university to tell students what courses they should take, or what subjects they should study?' To which I replied, 'Isn't that what professors are paid to do? When you go to a hospital,' I continued, 'you don't expect to tell the doctor what surgery he ought to perform and what medicines he ought to prescribe.' She was flabberghasted by the analogy. It barely made any sense to her. And I need to emphasize here I was dealing with an ambitious, accomplished, very able student. She was a high performer. She wanted to learn. She proved to be an excellent researcher. So where did someone like this get the idea that professors have neither the right nor the responsibility to teach students what is worth learning, and to impose form and coherence on students' education? Of course, she learned that lesson from her professors. Indeed the central lesson that our universities teach, the one co mmon idea, is that there is no core to higher education . . . 'Take what you want,' universities instruct. A little of this. A little of that. "This" and "that" turn out to be special areas of inquiry that our professors in the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences happen to be pursuing that year. Students conclude that there is no content to the notion of an educated person, not because they disregard what they learn at our universities, but because they pay attention all too well to what our universities are teaching." "As Bloom stresses, 'Intelligent young men and women like to read. They like to discuss, and yes, they like to debate serious books that raise large questions about how men and women ought to live their lives.' So let me close with a final practical remark, which I echo something that Heather said. The current curriculum is warped by two main factors. On the one hand by narrow classes that reflect professors' highly specialized research interests. It's warped on the other hand, as we've discussed today, by Left liberal politicization. The curriculum as it presently exists is not designed to serve students' interests. It is designed entirely by professors almost entirely to serve professors' interests, which not surprisingly differ from students' interests." He explained that he did not mean that the Left needs to be countered by the Right, but rather that students need a true liberal education. They entered a question and answer period. I'm only covering part of it here: I can't remember what the first question was, but MacDonald said in answer to it that there's probably never been a "golden age" of education. She put forward a theory that the reason for the decline in A&H was probably economic. Berkowitz answered with: "Reluctantly I must quarrel just a little bit with Heather. I'm sure that she's right that there's never been a golden age in education. Always people went to college for careers. We all know well of the "Gentleman's C" at Harvard, in the pre-1950s era. But I think you would be hard pressed to find a time in the history of higher education in the United States in which a majority, or at least a significant percentage of those whose job it is to teach and safeguard the university, are really devoted to ignorance; are devoted to depriving students of the things of beauty, which Heather wants them to appreciate." A question was asked about incentives and how they've changed at universities. The questioner said that people who expect to get tenure have to publish prolifically, and (I think) he indicated this is tough to do as a classics professor. He said "It's rare if a great teacher, and only a great teacher, gets tenure in today's modern universities." Berkowitz answered saying that not only is the curriculum set up to give the advantage to professors' pursuits over students', so is the university system, promoting the research of professors over education. This matched with complaints I had heard 10 years ago about Ivy League schools, that the professors were not spending enough time educating undergraduates. Instead a lot of undergraduate classes were being taught by graduate students. What I heard at the time was that more prominent professors tended to be more interested in research than in teaching, and the universities were accomodating them, because they were a draw for students, and funding. It sounded like a "bait and switch" at the time, because these folks were not interested in teaching them. It sounds like the same old story in this case, but with a different twist. What I've read causes me to come to a similar conclusion as MacDonald. Some of the reasons this rot has happened at our Ivy League schools is for financial reasons. Even though the arts and humanities are decaying, the math, science, and engineering disciplines (perhaps the business colleges as well) tend to not be suffering these effects. The reason seems to be that these other disciplines are more popular, because they're seen as a means to a goal: a career. The arts and humanities, not so much. Since the money is going into the "career majors", A&H get neglected. I really appreciated them having this discussion. It's something I've been concerned about for the past 5 years. Up until I found the Squeak community I felt as though I was one of only a few people who had concerns about it. Not that I suffered the ills they speak of in the humanities when I went to college, but I'm glad to see that solutions are being tried to bring the classic liberal arts curriculum back where it has whithered. ---Mark mmille10(a)comcast.net

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OLPC Image: is there an escape to "real" smalltalk?
by merlyn＠stonehenge.com 18 Nov '07

18 Nov '07

Forgive me if this has been answered already, but is there something I would be able to do on an OLPC Etoys Image to get an actual class browser? It seems the halo items that are "dangerous" have been disabled. -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 <merlyn(a)stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!

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