squeakland September 2007

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25 discussions

Re: [Squeakland] the non universals
by mmille10＠comcast.net 05 Sep '07

05 Sep '07

-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "Bill Kerr" <billkerr(a)gmail.com> > Mark Miller wrote: > >> Over the decades there's been a tearing down of authority. Now it's expected >> it will be distributed rather than narrowly focused, at least in more >> "liberal" environments (forgive my use of a political term). It seems like >> these are exercises in egalitarianism, where that's the primary value, >> rather than merit of the subject matter, because after all, who's to say one >> subject is more important than the other? By what authority do you claim one >> subject is worth less than another? In an environment where the "gods" have >> been torn down, seen as flawed and not worth listening to because their >> motives are suspect, everybody is a "god" > > I think that's an accurate description of what has been happening in formal > education in Australia and probably the "west". In the name of > egalitarianism in government schools in Australia the curriculum is being > watered down. One effect of this has been a migration of some of the best > students from government schools to private schools. So something done in > the name of equal outcomes ends up having the opposite impact. > > The thing I like about Alan's non universals list is that it is a valid > attempt to suggest that some knowledge might be more important than other > knowledge. This is based on scientific anthropological evidence. The > egalitarian assumption (and it is an assumption more than an argument) that > all curriculum areas ought to be equal is hard to change - it has become > institutionalised. But it's valuable to have a counter argument that is more > than just an assertion or a bald belief. Another aspect I forgot to mention about this trend is there's this idea among those who are more ideologically driven that there should be no judgement about anything. So if you're bringing in ideas that require judgement you may run into resistance. Unfortunately there are some who care so much about advancing the ethics of tolerance and non-judgement that they're drawn to absolutist, almost militant positions rooted in the universals. They miss some of the reasons why intolerance was able to flourish in the past, and I've found that in fact they repeat some of the same behavior patterns as those they say they despise, just with different criteria for discrimination. So unfortunately you may be faced with an intractible problem because you're dealing with people who probably don't have an appreciation for the non-unversals to begin with. I wish I could give advice for how to deal with this mentality, but I've only seen this in people. I haven't had to deal with them. > Other parts of your post indicate that there is an endless stream of > proposals which superficially might sound like "good ideas" (computer > literacy, vocational training, emotional intelligence) but which in all > likelihood just tap into the more mainstream universals thinking. Once > again, for me, the non universals list provide a coherent rallying point to > resist this sort of thing. I personally liked it when they were promoting programming as "computer literacy", and from reading Mark Guzdial's blog it looks like that idea might be returning, now in a broader context. I'd like to think that programming at least provided some lessons in the non-universals, though I'm sure that wasn't the intent for bringing it in. In reality schools behaved as if they were part of a "cargo cult", as I've seen some people use the term. They were swept up by the idea that "this is the next big thing and we don't want to be left behind". Schools are not the only places where this happens. It happens in business as well. The whole dot-com boom and bust was a "cargo cult" writ large. It's a pattern that's been repeated over and over. The same thing happened with toll roads and railroads in the U.S. in the 19th century. What always happens is a practical context eventually emerges from the "cargo cult" once people sober up from their mania. This is always preceded by an economic crash. Eventually these technologies are used in a meaningful way. Since there's apparently a symbiotic relationship between schools and industry, it's understandable though unfortunate that schools end up getting caught in this. The thing is if they didn't they'd be accused of teaching students "useless knowledge", or not promoting progress and meeting trends. I used to think this way. I knew others who did as well. There's a certain practicality about it. If you're just trying to make a living it can seem like there's little point in trying to become enlightened. It's easier to try to swim in the same waters as everyone else, because it seems like this will open up the largest number of opportunities for you. There's comfort in numbers. The practical ethic is that enlightenment is for those who have the time (and money) for it, or for those who are smart and can "get it" quickly. Since most high school students do not go on to college (at least in the U.S.), the practical ethic probably holds sway most of the time. I know our present situation is not nearly as precarious, but this reminds me a bit of the mindset of the Middle Ages. Despite the illiteracy of common folk and leaders of countries, Charlemagne was someone who thought differently and recognized the value of literacy and education, despite his own circumstances and that of his people. I haven't heard an explanation yet on why. I might investigate that sometime. He learned to read, and set about setting up schools for the populace, though as I understand his campaign to promote education didn't last long because of other disruptions. The impression I get is this probably mystified a lot of people of the time. It would've been seen as frivolous, having no practical value. Today we see this action on his part as enlightened. I think the idea of emotional intelligence is coming out of a managerial ethos. People have been picking up on the idea since the 1990s (that's when I first noticed it, anyway) that the way things are shaping up is that the U.S. will no longer be a place where stuff is made, but rather where ideas are created, and then turned into tangible products elsewhere. In short, "the rest of the world will produce, and we will manage that process". That's the idea anyway. I don't know how well it will pan out, and I personally don't endorse it. I like the idea that we make stuff here as well as around the world. But to take this managerial argument to its logical conclusion, IMO you need some technical intelligence to come up with feasible ideas for products to begin with, unless all you want to have is executive management that just allocates resources and that's the only domain in which you expect innovation to take place. Basically if you're going to become a global "management society" (if that's the goal), then you need people who can work well with other people, here and in other cultures, and inspire and lead to get things done--emotional intelligence (though I'd just call it by its common name: social skills)--along with the logistical skills. The problem is I don't see quite where schools fit into this. They can teach the logistical skills, and knowledge about other cultures, but they're not configured to "teach" social skills. That skill is inculcated most effectively in the family, IMO. > One of the things I lament about the U.S. public school system is it's > > becoming increasingly politicized in the sense that teachers are literally > > bringing political topics into classrooms where they don't fit well .... > > > > I disagree with you on the 3 paragraphs beginning with the above. Say, > take intelligent design. My feeling is that rather than banning it, it would > be better to debate it. This sharpens up peoples understanding of the > issues. > > The real problem here I think is lack of democracy in schools. ie. a teacher > may express a poltical view and students feel they don't have the right to > contradict it. I feel that we need to learn to debate and argue better and > this takes practice! The supporters of the teaching methods I described previously (I hesitate to use the word "method", because I don't really see a purpose to it, but some people do) say that this sort of "dialogue" between teachers and high school students "promotes debate". The examples I've heard about do not promote debate. They're more like class lectures with the teacher rambling on about their POV on the world, and not very intelligently at that. I've heard people compare this to the Socratic method, which strains believability and insults people's intelligence (the comparison, that is). I don't mean to equate this to germane discussions that fit within the context of the subject being taught, and there's a give and take between teachers and students. As I said in an earlier posting on the Squeakland list, when done well it can be a valuable learning experience. I haven't heard of any heavy handed intimidation with teachers and students in high schools. I have heard of an unsettling number of instances of this at universities, in the arts and humanities, where political correctness stifles healthy discussions. In these settings it seems more like attempts at indoctrination than education, which is a real shame, not only because they take the approach of shoving an ideology down students' throats and call it "critical thinking" (they use this canard as well), rather than conveying knowledge and encouraging academic investigation of it, but also it's a big waste of money. College is not cheap. I used to entertain the idea of ID being discussed in biology. While I don't mind its existence being mentioned, I've changed my mind about it going further than that. Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson made a very good argument against entertaining ID in science classes. He said the danger of bringing in the idea that an intelligent designer created what we see in our world is it precludes discovery. If a designer made what we see then there's no reason to explore it, because the cause of the phenomenon's existence, structure, and other properties have already been determined. He concluded with a concept I had never heard before, but I think it puts science in its proper context: Science is a philosophy of discovery. So anything that says "we cannot explore this, because we already know the answer" has no place in this philosophy. He emphasized that this does not mean that people's faith in a higher power is invalid. It just means it has no place in a scientific context, and it seemed to me that by defining science as a philosophy he implied that it did not have a monopoly on the truth either. It's a method of discovering things about us and our world, which produces knowledge that is consistent and reliable. Unfortunately I can't reproduce exactly what he said here, but I thought his argument was so good that there was no disputing it. You might ask why not have this discussion in biology, since it would clarify the issue. I think once you open it up for discussion you introduce a dynamic where no matter how well reasoned the argument is there will be some who will choose to not agree with it, because they feel it challenges their faith, and this can be disruptive. What I used to hear happened at the high school I attended was when a science class got into subjects that fundamentally disagreed with students' faith, they were free to leave the classroom while that subject was being covered, and could come back in later. This expressed their dissent, and they could choose not to be present for ideas that they fundamentally disagreed with, but it did not open the subject up for non-scientific debate. This seems like a reasonable policy to me for science courses. If students want to bring up anomalies in the theory of evolution, fine, but I don't think it's appropriate to set up a situation where you get into a discussion of whether something supernatural created what we see or if it came about through random interactions. Save that for existential philosophy. There are other outlets for this as well, such as literature, art, and perhaps religious studies. You might ask why treat science courses differently than others? I think that science is unique with respect to religion, because both attempt to explain in their own way why things are the way they are. Some would say science explains more about *how* things are than why, and there's some truth to that. There's no rhyme or reason for it except what is self-evident. Religion uses methods that fit in the universals category, magical and intuitive, for explaining these things. Science uses methods that fit in the non-universals category. Not to say that this encompasses all that religion is. It promotes some non-universals, like reading, obviously, and it promotes some aspects of civilization, like following a set of laws, and social harmony, foregoing one's own interests for the greater good. These aspects of it were far more valuable in Medieval times when illiteracy and chaos were rampant, but I don't think it should be taken for granted today. It's natural for children up to about age 7 to exist entirely in the universals. I'm just speculating, but religion may very well provide a vital bridge for children so they can transition from the universals to the non-universals. ---Mark mmille10(a)comcast.net http://tekkie.wordpress.com

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rubberbanded sibling problem
by Randy Heiland 04 Sep '07

04 Sep '07

I painted objects A then B (different objects). I then used the shift-click rubberband feature to select them both and then created a sibling of those selected objects. Script A1 just did a 'turn by' on A. Script A2 did a 'tell all siblings to do A1'. The latter didn't work. It did work on an explicitly created sibling of obj A. -Randy

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saving projects (OLPC)
by Randy Heiland 04 Sep '07

04 Sep '07

Using the OLPC etoys, when I save my project to 'Publish to different server' (by holding down the Keep Project icon for an extended time), does it save it to both my local hard disk AND some Squeak server, or just my local disk? -Randy p.s. THANKS for all those math functions in the 'palette of useful tiles'! nitpick: it would be nice to really be able to create a variable named 'x' (as opposed to having it renamed to 'x1')

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particlesdyeinwater
by Randy Heiland 02 Sep '07

02 Sep '07

In the OLPC etoys, I went to the Gallery and opened the ParticlesDyeInWater project in the Kedama section. In there, I saw a movie player object with an image of a bowl of water. I tried to play the movie, but it seemed to ask me for a local (mpg) file? I finally hit the Quit button in that movie player and the object went away - never to be found again. Advice? -Randy

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Re: [Squeakland] the non universals
by mmille10＠comcast.net 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Blake <blake(a)kingdomrpg.com> > On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:33:37 -0700, <mmille10(a)comcast.net> wrote: > > > No, they didn't use the term "office suite" back then. I was relating > > the curriculum to what it would be called now. We did learn about how to > > use a word processor, spreadsheet, and database application, though. > > Yes, they were separate applications. May be I didn't make that clearin > > what I wrote. I remember we used AppleWriter (I think), and VisiCalc,and > > some database app. whose name I can't remember, all on Apple II's. > > Well, let me apologize if I sounded overly picky. There was a very short > window (historically speaking) for when "office suite" might have meant > anything other than "Microsoft Office". It's depressing to hear that (at > least in your experience) the needle went from oddball geek hobby to > mundane replacement for typewriter, ledger and filing system. To their > current state: Monopoly perpetuators. Just a simple misunderstanding. :) My experience with computing in Jr. high was fun, interesting, and challenging, largely because we were allowed to bring in our own creativity. From what I've been hearing this stands in stark contrast to what passes for computing in schools now, which sounds tedious and boring. IMO it's no wonder people don't want to go into CS. Their first experience with it is like "stale bread" compared to what I had. There are other reasons for the decrease in interest, but inspiration to move towards it should not be overlooked. > Too much of it is a matter of interest destroyed: A student attacks a > subject vigorously but is crushed in some manner or another, say with the > sort of ritualistic kind of "teaching" Alan describes, where there is no > understanding, and these days where the rituals have been replaced with a > shadow of something that "builds self-esteem" while even denigrating > understanding. And of course the usual brutal traditions of bad teachers. I agree with you about the moves towards "self-esteem" practices that only end up deceiving students and parents into believing the students are learning everything they can when in fact they're missing out. I experienced the ritualistic methodology you speak of in a couple of the primary schools I attended. It didn't agree with me. Fortunately I didn't have to stay there long. I grew up with a single mother who just so happened to be a Montessori teacher. :) She wanted me to be in creative, interesting schools whenever possible. When I was young I was moved in and out of private and public schools. Things stabilized for me at 5th grade when she found a public school district that fit reasonably well with what she and I both wanted for me. My mother and I recounted this recently. I was telling her a bit about this discussion on here. She said when she was evaluating what schools I should attend she looked at the curricula/programs and she talked to the principals. She said principals had a lot of power to shape the schools. They hired the teachers. If she liked what the principal had to say, she'd consider sending me to that school. I had a mixture of good and bad teachers, and as Kay said in response to your post, I had some that inspired me, even years later, to study further what they taught. One was a civics teacher in Jr. high. He was the only teacher I can remember who made an effort to really show us what goes on in politics, democracy, functioning governments, and courtrooms, by setting up these scenarios in the classroom, and then showing us our own behavior in these settings. In one exercise he set up a scenario where the class was "on a spaceship" and had landed on a livable planet, and we were setting up a new government from scratch. He then let us loose debating and agreeing to systems of government, and laws that would govern our society. It was simplistic, of course. The interesting thing was what new ideas emerged when existing constraints were removed. These exercises were fascinating, because we were participating in and observing a society in a microcosm. We were allowed to be as opinionated as we wanted to be, and we were allowed to discuss those opinions with the other students. Sometimes the teacher would jump in to provide some clarity and adult experience to the conversation. I still remember some of the experiences we had in that class. Interesting stuff. Another was a CS professor at the university I attended as an undergrad. My goal was to take a graduate level course on compilers since I was curious about them. Before I could get there I had to take a senior level course on programming languages, where we explored different types of languages, their conceptual underpinnings, history, and some of what made them tick. This was in 1991. We did some labs in a few of the dynamic languages, including Smalltalk. I remember the professor explained to us that Smalltalk was originally not just a language, but a computer system. I don't think he used the term "operating system" to describe it. From what I understand now it would fit well in a course on operating systems, though the CS curriculum apparently didn't recognize it for what it was. This professor did. He said the language was a part of the system, and the system could be modified via. the language while it was running. He also said it had a graphical interface with windows. I remember being a bit dazzled by this description. It sounded very interesting, but it gave me a bit of headache trying to understand what he was talking about. I eventually got it after pondering it for a while. It's too bad he didn't have any of the videos of the ST-80 demos from Xerox. We didn't use the full Smalltalk system for our assignments, but rather GNU Smalltalk, using only its scripting mode. I had a great time, brief as it was, programming in it. It was my first OOP language. What I liked about it is it seemed that one could "program with concepts" rather than with types. I had the experience of creating a domain-specific language (that's what they call it now), and the pleasure of doing that came from it feeling so natural to use. I could express a problem in a notation that was basically native to the domain. I still remember the experience. It's the reason I even thought to look at Squeak last year once I heard about it. BTW, Alan, your presentation at ETech 2003 on Squeak and Croquet, and the history it built upon blew my mind. I watched it online. It took the Smalltalk experience I had in college up to a whole new level. The feeling I had afterwards was, "What have I been doing all of these years?" Thanks for that! :) > But you know, it doesn't seem to matter much what subject it is, I've seen > the same thing in all of them: if the student is interested, nothing will > stop him; if not, nothing will help. Some of this is a matter of native > interest: We are not all interested in the same things, and no matter how > delightfully presented, the subject will remain at best a mild curiosity. I guess I can relate to this through a couple of experiences I had with math subjects, but usually this was not the case with others. If a teacher made an effort to teach a subject well I tended to get interested enough to learn it. There was meat to these subjects, and the teacher tried to convey an understanding of that. I had decent teachers in Calculus and linear algebra, insofar as they made an effort to cover topics completely using their methodology and engage their students, but I had a hard time getting interested in the subject and/or relating to it. I think it was largely because what they did was teach a few basic concepts in depth, and then spent the rest of the class on high level concepts, never delving into what was really going on. So basically all I learned from them was pattern matching and symbol manipulation. This only got interesting when I took a CS class where one of our assignments was to create a Lisp program that did symbolic differentiation, which heavily used these same skills. The part of all this that felt so empty was I could go through the motions and get a correct answer, by following some rules, without having a real grasp of what I was describing with my algebraic equations. It's a scary feeling, actually. I felt like I was learning very little, and in retrospect I think that feeling was correct. In large part the classes were a waste of my time, unless the goal was not to teach me math, but these other skills. I've sometimes wondered if that's the reason the CS curriculum requires one to take Calculus. I've heard more than one person tell me that it's good for CS students to take lots of math, because it indirectly teaches you how to approach problems logically. Well, it did that for me, but I don't think I really learned Calculus. I had a few experiences back then that demonstrated to me that I had very little understanding of linear math, despite being able to produce correct answers in it by following some rules. I didn't come to truly understand the subject until I took physics. ---Mark mmille10(a)comcast.net http://tekkie.wordpress.com

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squeakland September 2007