Re: [xmca] Direct Instruction: observations at Djarragun college, Cape York, Australia

[Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com>]

Huw Lloyd:

> Seymour Papert drew attention to these systemic issues in "The Children's
> Machine": the isolation of computing in schools as a means to prevent the
> curriculum's remediation.  The book is a mature revision of his original
> efforts.
>

I recently reread Ch 8: Computerists. It says:

In Artificial Intelligence (AI), my work with Marvin Minsky struggle
against "logic" as the basis of reasoning and against all forms of
"particulate" and "propositional" representation of knowledge (165)


I thought this struggle against was too strongly put. It's not really
dialectical, there needs to be some sort of interpenetration b/w logic and
relationship. Note also the heading to chapter 7: Instructionism versus
Constructionism. Why versus? It is better to look at the interplay b/w
instructionism and constructionism.

I then went back to Minsky's book Society of Mind and reread his Ch 18:
Reasoning. He makes the case there that common sense is more robust than
logic. But I didn't get the same sense of either / or that creeps into
Papert's book.

My own experience in teaching disadvantaged students was that it was better
for the teacher to walk the whole continuum - all the way down to
behaviourism and all the way up to constructionism.

Papert is a beautiful writer but not all of his arguments are valid IMO,
although many of them are.


On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>wrote:

> On 10 May 2012 10:02, Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 8:26 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > As I understand it view points research (Papert, Kay and others) are or
> > > were involved in ways to scale teaching approaches (presumably
> > > constructionist teaching approaches).
> > >
> > > Yes and that has continued with the one laptop per child project (OLPC)
> > as
> > well. But Alan Kay has pointed out
> > (a) most teachers don't understand the ideas behind logo (or etoys)
> deeply
> > enough
> >
> > *Q: What have you found to be the greatest obstacle in your work?*
> > A: I think the most difficult part is helping the helpers. Logo was a
> great
> > idea and it failed. It didn't fail because computers couldn't do Logo,
> and
> > it didn't fail because Logo software was bad. It failed because the
> second
> > and third waves of teachers were not interested in it as a new thing, and
> > virtually none of them understood anything about mathematics or science.
> > It's very hard to teach Logo well if you don't know math. ...
> > http://www.squeakland.org/resources/articles/article.jsp?id=1004
> >
> >
> In the history of attempted pedagogic ideas I think it had a good many
> successes.  If it was a real failure we wouldn't know about it.  There are
> plenty of ecological circumstances to explore too with respect to the
> survival or regeneration of these projects, such as Mike's ruminations in
> Cultural Psychology.
>
>

> Seymour Papert drew attention to these systemic issues in "The Children's
> Machine": the isolation of computing in schools as a means to prevent the
> curriculum's remediation.  The book is a mature revision of his original
> efforts.
>
>
> >
> > (b)  no one has yet developed a computer user interface that  could teach
> > children to read in their native language
> >
>
> It's an interesting thought experiment, but why is it necessary?
>
> In terms of a constructionist frame, reading would be something that one
> does as part of a personally desired activity.  Reading about how, what, or
> why for instance.  Having an online computer facilitates that.
>
> [...]
>
> It is considerations such as these that has caused me to look beyond the
> > OLPC to a method that would work with the most disadvantaged group in
> > Australia.
> >
>
> Personally I wouldn't go anywhere near uptake without addressing question 1
> below.  Q2 is more of an aside.
>
> 1.  What kinds of communication and development can take place?  What else
> is being communicated?  Is it really to their advantage?
>
> 2.  How much of DI is an effort to realise a particular temperamental
> (semiotically derived) preference (and therefore blindness)?  The
> wishfulness of "direct" seems quite strong and there are plenty of traps
> that Zig looked like he was flirting with in the video I watched.
>
> Thanks for the good posts, Bill.  I hope this is an additive.
> Huw
>
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