Re: LOGO-L>Atlantic Monthly article: July issue

["Dale R. Reed" <dale-reed@postoffice.worldnet.att.net>]

Brian Harvey wrote:
> As to what should be forced on kids, my answer is "nothing."  Forcing is
> one of the ways we teach kids to hate learning, imho.  Give them lots of
> opportunities and be happy with whichever they follow up.

I call them rich learning environments that include as many successful
adults as possible.  Children should have the opportunity to be with, or
at least communicate(in person or via Cyberspace) with adults who have
been-there-done-that.  And better yet are still doing it.

Like me.  I can tell them how I got from there to here and how I think
they could do it better than I did.  And if they need a jump start then
I have some experience(raising two boys) on how to provide incentives
and artificial(if the pleasure of learning does not appear to be enough)
rewards.  My boys earned fishing trips and days in which their Pop would
drive them(starting when they were about five years old) wherever they
and their buddies wanted to go and I would do whatever they wanted to do
with them.  

Or being a selfish greedy capitalist myself I would pay them with $$$$
for written papers well done.  And contests, lots of spur of the moment
neighborhood arithmetic and spelling and... in your head contests done
in the backyard while we were hand sawing(I was raising boys that
required muscle exercise if they were going to be big strong men like
their Pop) splitting our winter wood or when driving to go swimming at
the lake or... 

But I guarantee you if we had had LOGO 20 years ago when my boys were
growing up and they had NOT been forced to waste 5 hours a day in the
State Conditioning Centers(I and thousands of others had to
de-criminalize family directed schooling while my boys were growing up)
we would have had more than one computer in our home.   

There is a rapidly growing body of documented experience that humans
should be allowed to spend their most efficient learning years learning
what they want to learn not what the community(government) and some
randomly chosen teacher wants them to learn.  It appears that it is not
a good idea to isolate children from the real world forcing them to sit
quietly(or worse) in a large group(its called school) of restless and
bored children under some sweet(or worse) young thing right out(or worse
graduated 20 years ago) of teachers college that does not really have a
clue about how the real world works.  But is more than willing to use
"hickory sticks" and Peppermint Prozac(see this weeks U.S. News and
World Report, paper and on-line Editions) to force the children to
knuckle under to authority. 

I quote from Brian Harvey's wonderful books.  Page xi of Computer
Science Logo Style, Volume 1, Second Edition:   

"This book is for people who are interested in computer programming
because it's fun." 

And page xvii of the same book, "There are no formal exercises at the
ends of chapters.  That's because (1) I hate a school-like atmosphere;
(2) you're supposed to be interested enough already to explore on your
own; and (3) I think it's better to encourage your creativity by letting
you invent your own exercises."

Brian and I are pretty much at the opposite ends of the
economic/political spectrum(plotted in THREE dimensions not just two
because, liberal and conservative, left and right, commie and capitalist
really are not suffice designations anymore) if he still believes what
he wrote(and I understand it correctly) and documented on his web
page(last time I looked a year or so ago).  But we very clearly agree on
the best learning environments for earthlings, both young and old. 

And at this next-to-last stage of my life agreement on this issue is
very important to me.  

And in my Not So Humble Opinion(NSHO) it ought to be important to every
thinking adult.    Dale
-- 
$  dale-reed@worldnet.att.net   Seattle, Washington U.S.A.  $
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