- Our society has no need for children…
- Technology has taken children out of the workforce. And while we can all agree that taking nine year olds out of factories is a good thing, this has robbed children of a sense of contribution to the community.
- Production of human capital has always been the purpose of American public education. We don’t care about the kids, we don’t even care about the adults they will be (where adult = citizen, partner, lover, parent, neighbor, friend, generally self-actualized person)—we care only about the WORKERS they will be! (This is disgusting.)
- No wonder they hate school and adults and The Man and The System. No wonder they tune out any way they can, with sex and drugs and video games. No wonder they feel isolated and misunderstood. They have no control over their lives and aren’t even seen as people.
- Vygotsky and the Internet
- “People learn by having conversations and testing each other”
- The internet provides new opportunities for engagement with Vygotskian experts (people who know how to do something you don’t)
- What impact does this have on the concept of authority?
- Crowd sourcing
- Calling on a community rather than an expert for answers
- Fall of the Ivory Tower?
- The evolution of information
- For today’s kids, the online experience of information is very personal.à How do we duplicate this online experience in the classroom? How do we make information relevant, personal, and the focus of agency?
- We should use tech not “because we have to” but because it is a very real way to make learning experiences authentic and autonomous
- Info as a raw material: Its value comes from what you can DO/MAKE with it
- This is in line with Vygotsky: An expert is just someone who can do something you can’t. And learning happens through direct, interactive engagement (aka conversation) with these experts
- “In every classroom”
- November’s recommendations are for “every classroom.” This misses the point. One-size-doesn’t work. It won’t work any better with fancy technology and new definitions of learning.
- What works for one teacher in a classroom in the Bronx won’t necessarily work for another teacher in a classroom in Orange County. We need to let teachers teach the kids in front of them.
- Shifting the locus of control
- Novmeber recommends changing the concept of a learner to someone who contributes to society through their work (learning)
- This requires a shift of control from the teacher to the network of students
- In any time, in any place, a good teacher is one who isn’t afraid of her students.
