[IAEP] 70 minute interview with Bryan Berry on XO deployment in Nepal

[Bill Kerr]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Bryan Berry <bryan at olenepal.org> wrote:

> > From: Bill Kerr <billkerr at gmail.com>
> > 10) Open Source software critical to high quality education ? education
> has
> > to be very customised, to the kids, the teacher, the environment and the
> > country ? not something you can design in New York city and will fit
> another
> > country
> > http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2009/04/olpc-nepal-project-overview.html
> >
> > The counterbalance to that is that The Enlightenment is what made us,
> what
> > created modernity, what transformed diverse cultures into our modern
> culture
>
> Well, as they say "all politics are local" and the corollary "all
> education issues are local issues" is true as well. Education systems
> are political institutions and they require that new educational content
> and methods fit them, rather than the other way around. Imposing a whole
> new pedagogy is only feasible when you have a lot of political power, $,
> and significant body of evidence to back you up. As we have none of
> those here in Nepal, we have to accommodate the existing system as much
> as we can.
>
> The Enlightenment that made western culture happened among wealthy men
> w/ free time on their hands, or those sponsored by wealthy individuals.
> It didn't happen w/in educational institutions of the day IIRC. But that
> is another debate ;)


for starters, the whole xo project is in contradiction to the above argument
- or I thought it was


> > Zitat von Ties Stuij <cjstuij at gmail.com>:
> > > I think you're misinterpreting Bryan as having said something
> > > culturally relativistic. Think more practical. The most practical
> > > example for Bryan's point is that if we wouldn't make stuff that is in
> > > line with the Nepali curriculum, week by week, subject by subject, it
> > > would be very hard to sell here.
>
> wow, I couldn't say it better myself.
>
> > Christoph wrote:
> > So in this case it doesn't necessarily make sense for someone in Berlin
> > (let alone New York) to design a Maths learning activity to be used in
> > an Austrian school.
>
> I disagree w/ this. Someone in Berlin or NYC can create learning
> activities of value to those in Nepal or elsewhere but likely they have
> to be changed in small but important ways. That is one of the reasons
> open-source is so critical to improving education.


that seems to me to be an important qualification of Bryan's words in the
initial interview - no harm in that

10) Open Source software critical to high quality education – education has
to be very customised, to the kids, the teacher, the environment and the
country – not something you can design in New York city and will fit another
country
<http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2009/04/olpc-nepal-project-overview.html>
Liping Ma argues (admittedly from small sample sizes) that many teachers
teach elementary maths differently and *better* in China than in the USA
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2009/03/long-multiplication.html

if you are suggesting that in all cases the digital transformations should
stick to existing Nepali methods - (a dubious construct since different
teachers in all education systems use different methods, Nepal too would
have its more thoughtful and less thoughtful teachers as do all systems) -
where there is evidence that some methods work better than others then I
couldn't agree with that

on the other hand if you are saying that you don't have time to do the
educational research as well as doing everything else then that is
understandable. I wouldn't criticise that but I don't think it should be
abstracted to become a theoretical point either, that local is in some sense
superior to central. I think a formulation that there is a dynamic
interaction b/w central and local is better - and leads to better global
working relationships as well.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20090429/28e64973/attachment.htm