[IAEP] versus, not

[Alan Kay]

It's not about arguing but about introducing "many views of the elephant" into discourse.

I'm not talking at all about DI or "the C word", I'm talking about what it takes (and is likely to take) to get students to fluency in the real deals. As I said, this is not the same threshold for being a pro, but it is comparable to the rather high thresholds that being a literate person requires. It is not comparable to "being able to read a little" or to be able "to do sums a little" for mathematics.

And I'm not particularly worrying about "13% of students in special ed", I'm worried about the 80% or more of students that don't get really literate and don't get to the first real stages of fluency in mathematical thinking.

In #2 I think I wasn't clear enough. It is quite possible to teach both of the basics you mention in such a way that "the heady levels" cannot be seen and are never attained. And, to me, success in the "basics" only counts in conversation if the students eventually get above the real thresholds. (This is why thresholds are so important compared to just relative measures.)

My view of most institutional schooling is that it is done badly. I like to retain original meanings of words, but this is rather old fashioned these days. Whatever it is that the states do with the C word, is rather like what they did with the P word (Dewey's Progressive education). This also became a paint which in the institutions that took it up quickly departed from the very good ideas Dewey had in mind. (And a wide variety of unsophisticated adults inside and outside of the school system did these ideas in). 

Similarly, it is hard to find a real Montessori school (and even harder to find one that has successfully updated to the 21st century). But she was one of the true geniuses of early childhood education. A wonderful counter example to the trend of making great educational ideas into stupid prisons are the incredible Kindergarted schools that have been flourishing in Reggio Emilia Italy since WWI. The amount of effort to do this in teacher (and parent) training is monumental (but is there anything more important?)

Cheers,

Alan




________________________________
From: Kathy Pusztavari <kathy at kathyandcalvin.com>
To: iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 7:37:57 AM
Subject: Re: [IAEP] versus, not

 
Listen, I don't want to argue with Alan Kay.  
Obviously I'm not as smart nor have I been at it as long as him (I googled him 
and watched 3 different videos - amazing!).  My job is to set the record 
straight.
 
1. "Tim Gallwey is one of the best teachers I've ever observed, and he had a 
number of extremely effective techniques to help his students learn the real 
deal very quickly (and almost none of these were direct instruction..."  
 
I would be willing to bet $10 (I'm cheap, alright?) 
that Mr. Gallwey has used the principles of Direct Instruction to teach.  
I'd love to see Mr Gallwey teach a child with autism, developmental disability, 
or speech/communication issue how to talk, ask questions, etc. without Direct 
Instruction/Applied Behavior Analysis.  About 1-3% of the educational 
students have serious learning issues and about 17% have 
undiagnosed "learning disabilities" that make these students fail 
in current constructionist educational system.  In all, there are an 
average of 13% students in special ed, some of which are there simply because 
they can't read. 
 
2. "At levels below these two, we are talking about areas of study that are 
neither about literacy nor about mathematics, but something else. The something 
else could be useful (for example, reading street signs and goods in stores, or 
adding up simple sums)."
 
I'm sorry, that doesn't make sense.  Below heady 
levels of learning ARE the basics - arithmetic and literacy (learning to 
read).
 
3. "However, part of the real deal is being able to *do* the pursuits, not just know 
something about them..."
 
Direct Instruction and Applied Behavior Analysis 
actually require the ability to generalize what you have learned to new 
situations.  The do not preclude activities to generalize concepts.  
Often, however, activities are foregone due to time constraints - which is 
unfortunate.
 
If students are not generalizing, the "Analysis" part 
should indicate "ooops, I messed up as a teacher."  I've done it myself 
when my son's therapists realized (to their surprise) that he forgot the 
meaning of bigger and smaller.  The items used to teach these concepts were 
limited to one exemplar and it did not get generalized.  We then moved the 
program to a more natural environment (think Helen Keller going around and 
touching things in the room) and voila, the problem was 
solved.
 
4. "My main complaint about most schooling processes whether official or 
grassroots is that for a wide variety of reasons they settle for the "something 
else" rather than try to find ways to help the students learn the real 
deals."
 
Yes, and watching kids struggle in class, say they are 
stupid, practice avoidance behavior due curriculum and teacher aversions is NO 
FUN.  It is easily solvable by putting kids in appropriate curriculum that 
lets them succeed.  I saw it with my fourth graders (and some fifth) more 
times than I care to admit in a short 12 week period.  It was very sad so 
see 2 out of 24 of my fourth grade students completely, 100%, illiterate 
and about 20% illiterate enough to be unable to comprehend what they were 
reading.  And this was at the most elite school in the 
town.
 
I'm not religious about DI but I have to fight for it 
everywhere to simply be considered, included, or even considered as an 
option.  In my state, constructivism is so rampant that when I mention DI I 
get treated like the red headed step child.  And so does the option of 
Direct Instruction because, you see, the dirty little secret is that DI is not 
really an option at all.
 
-Kathy


________________________________
 From: iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org 
[mailto:iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Alan 
Kay
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 6:27 AM
To: Bill Kerr; 
Walter Bender
Cc: iaep; Sugar-dev Devel; 
community-news at lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: Re: [IAEP] versus, 
not


My take on this over the years has excluded labels and categories for a 
variety of reasons.

But I do think thresholds are important for most 
areas of learning. For example, at what level would an actually literate person 
consider a high school graduate to be fluent in literate actions and thinking? 
At what level would a mathematician consider a high school graduate fluent in 
mathematical actions and thinking? This is very different from asking questions 
about the level that a professional would need to attain. At levels below these 
two, we are talking about areas of study that are neither about literacy nor 
about mathematics, but something else. The something else could be useful (for 
example, reading street signs and goods in stores, or adding up simple 
sums).

My main complaint about most schooling processes whether official 
or grassroots is that for a wide variety of reasons they settle for the 
"something else" rather than try to find ways to help the students learn the 
real deals.

If the real deals are chosen, then the interesting question 
is what kinds of processes will work for what kinds of learners? If it is some 
non-trivial percentage of direct instruction, then this is what should be done 
(and depending on the learner, this percentage could range from 0% to a 
surprisingly high number). However, part of the real deal is being able to *do* 
the pursuits, not just know something about them, so all pedagogical approaches 
will have to find ways to get learners to learn how to do what practitioners do 
who above the two thresholds of "fluency" and "pro".

Tim Gallwey is one 
of the best teachers I've ever observed, and he had a number of extremely 
effective techniques to help his students learn the real deal very quickly (and 
almost none of these were direct instruction -- partly because, as he liked to 
say, "The parts of the brain that you need to do the learning very often don't 
understand English!"). But if he could see that the student had gotten on a 
track that couldn't be influenced by "guided discovery", then he would instantly 
tell them to "do it this way". In other words, he was not religious about his 
own very successful method, but instead did what his students individually 
needed and that worked the best for them (which happened to be "learning by 
doing").

Best wishes,

Alan




________________________________
 From: Bill Kerr 
<billkerr at gmail.com>
To: Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
Cc: iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; 
Sugar-dev Devel <sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>; 
community-news at lists.sugarlabs.org
Sent: Monday, May 4, 2009 5:20:50 
PM
Subject: [IAEP] versus, 
not


On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:

===Sugar  Digest===

I encourage you to join two threads on the Education List  this week:
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html,  which
has boiled down to an instruction vs construction debate;  and
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html,  which
has boiled down to a debate of catering to local culture vs  the
Enlightenment. I encourage you to join these discussions.
Agree that these are important discussions 

Need to 
be careful about the use of the versus depiction of these discussions IMO, this 
tempting shorthand can create the wrong impression

eg. I would see direct 
instruction as a must for autistic children but don't see that it follows as a 
general model for all education (special needs are special) or that we should 
even think it is possible to have a correct general model. I don't think there 
is one and good teachers swap between multiple models all the time.

no 
one on this list has argued overtly against  "the enlightenment" or that 
local culture ought not to be taken into account, eg. Ties said "think 
practical", the response was of the nature that our context demands we do <a 
certain course of action>

however, I do think the roll back of 
enlightenment principles is not well understood (http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals) and that 
a  better understanding might persuade more people of the need to keep 
searching and struggling for different ways to go against some of  the tide 
of local culture - there is a recent interesting comment thread on mark 
guzdial's blog which is worth reading from this point of view http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK 


      
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