[IAEP] Sugata Mitra at TED 2013

[Nicholas Doiron]

I watched this video with some of the OLPC team at the Ministry of
Education, Marshall Islands.  As you might imagine, the video was
enlightening but somewhat threatening.  A speech saying the education
system is obsolete!  Students using computers without anyone deciding what
they should learn!

In the US, similar ideas led to the
unschooling<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling>movement. There
are a lot of smart kids and great programs, but I saw one
interview where a parent argued that if their kids needed algebra, they
would read about it and learn. How will they recognize an algebra problem
when they see it (for example, the parabola of a flying baseball)? How will
they know that it can be calculated at all?

When you're talking about implementing this in a school, that's a big risk
for the principal and teachers to take. I want to make room for open-ended
student-led research - like the DNA reading, the electrons project - in a
standard classroom.  Computers are making this possible for younger
students. But I'm wary of telling teachers that students are going to learn
best while they're on their own.

-- 
Nick Doiron
San Francisco, CA


On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 12:07 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima
<Yoshiki.Ohshima at acm.org>wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 11:24 PM, Dominik Granada <dgranada at frks.pl> wrote:
> >
> > Arthur Benjamin says: teach statistics before calculus (check on TED) -
> cant
> > paste link now
> >
> > Free and democratic schools experience indicates that strong testing and
> > guidance understood traditionally are at least .... obsolete.
> >
> > and btw children in free schools learn calculus when they see the need
> for
> > it
>
> I should have written: children won't "invent" calculus.  (A big
> mistake, sorry about it.)  As Walter wrote, that was what it meant.
> If you want to learn about the context of that statement, you can
> Google for it.
>
> Because calculus (and statistics, sure) is so cool that I'd hope that
> children learn it.  If a child is in the project-based learning
> setting, I sure hope that he takes on a project that does give him a
> reason to learn it.  If it is solely based on the "need" for it,
> however, surely most people are not going to need to learn calculus or
> statistics.
>
> > cheers DG
> >
> > Yoshiki Ohshima <Yoshiki.Ohshima at acm.org> napisał:
> >>
> >> On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 10:12 AM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> When I was teaching I had a saying usually attributed to Confucius
> >>> (carefully hand drawn in calligraphy… no computers available to print
> it
> >>> then) and hung above the chalkboard (old technology). It was my motto
> for
> >>> teaching:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> It may have been first said 2500 years ago, but I believe it is still
> >>> valid
> >>> today. That is why I do what I do!
> >>
> >>
> >> Invoking proverbs is fun as you can always find the one that argues
> >> for the other way.
> >>
> >> The above one probably was a somewhat liberal translation of what
> >> Xunzi (荀子) wrot
> >>  e.  But
> >> one other thing Confucius said was:
> >> "學而不思則罔、思而不學則殆", for which I found an English translation: "If you
> >> learn without thinking, you cannot understand truly. If you think
> >> without learning, you will be self-righteous."  (I might translate the
> >> last word to "dangerous", as it is closer to the original meaning.)
> >>
> >> Alan Kay often says: Children won't discover calculus on their own.
> >>
> >> Doing is important, but in the learning process good checking system
> >> and guidance is essential.  The above quote should be taken as "in
> >> addition to hearing and seeing, you should do things".
> >>
> >> --
> >> -- Yoshiki
> >> ________________________________
> >>
> >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> >> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
> >
> >
> > --
> > Wysłane z telefonu.
>
>
>
> --
> -- Yoshiki
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>
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