[Sugar-devel] versus, not

[Walter Bender]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Bill Kerr <billkerr at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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

Fair enough. I agree that *most* people on the list agree that there
is not just one right way. And to use a metaphor that has been
oft-spoken in the US news of late, Sugar Labs has to have a "big
tent."

Sugar itself has affordances that can be used in support of many
educational approaches and virtually any content area.

But while we can and should be inclusive and not tie the hands of good
teachers or alienate administrators, we can encourage behaviors we
think are generally productive, such as looking at problems from
multiple points of view, engaging in the criticism of ideas, in
particular, the ideas of the Enlightenment.

> 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
>

Regarding Guzdial's blog, I am optimistic. While I had always feared
that "phone culture" would turn us into a society of consumers of
services that Ma Bell chose for us; but the iPhone and the Android are
programmable and, while Apple is the iPhone gatekeeper, the meme that
phones can be programmed is spreading. This is a huge step forward.

-walter

-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org