Big discussion of future of learning

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 22, 2007

Just have to pass this link along. I was reading up on Danny Hillis, one of the pioneers of supercomputing. And I came across this 2004 discussion on Edge.org, in which he outlines a bold idea called Aristotle, an automated tutor with the world of knowledge ideas coursing through its circuits. The idea is interesting. But what led me to link to this page is the discussion that follows. It’s full of big thinkers (who are excellent writers) weighing in on how we should be learning and teaching.

Take, for example, these paragraphs by Jaron Lanier:

Education in America is a mass of deadwood and sludge studded with gems. It’s not too hard to find a magical school with devoted teachers to try out new educational technologies and generate promising results. These aren’t necessarily the rich schools, either. It seems impossible, however, to preserve any of the best elements of educational technology in large scale deployment. The typical school computer is an aging business-oriented machine running useless software. It can’t compete with the video game boxes kids love.

Why? Part of the problem is entrenched political and financial interests. In the state of California, for instance, textbook publishers convinced the legislature to keep non-book curriculum materials out of the requirements, so that they must be conceived as a luxury. If you want to cure a case of excessive cheer, go take a look at some of the current textbooks and see how much they cost. I saw one recently in New York, a big, expensive elementary school math textbook filled with color pictures of diverse people who "love math", but displaying no love of math itself. It was also filled with errors. Look at how cheap video game boxes are and how expensive crummy required textbooks are. While medicine and defense are the first choices for those who think of the government as the worlds stupidest but most reliable customer, education comes in as a close third.

Or this, by Roger Schank:

What should a web course be? For starters the concept of course is all wrong. A course is of arbitrary duration. Horses run courses set up at pre-established standardized distances at various racetracks. Students are not horses. Students need to accomplish tasks and having accomplished them they should move on to the next task. Students are not horses. They needn't run through courses. They need to practice whatever skills they are being taught in a realistic environment. Such an environment is the kind of "course" that should be on the internet.

And while I'm droning on, how about these quotes:

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught. — Oscar Wilde

A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on a cold iron.
— Horace Mann

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