The Art of Knowledge

 

Replying to Tim

...but anyway I love what you are saying and we have said it all before...I think group paradigms are essential but not necessarily the only way they should learn...there has to be individual assesment on some level and groups are sometimes more coincidently put together than strategically...I think the group paradigm can work most effectively in a large cluster of students not just in a small class of people where maybe one person (Mann) would dominate or undermind other people (Dip and Karen). Anyway...I love it all...but here let me give you my direct notes from when I printed out your mail...

Tim - "Emphasis placed on Individual learning = bad"
Me - "I think that the organic schools that use group models (Edison schools in Philly and some Milken schools in Texas and Cali) are a great idea. They have shown huge beneficial results from the group paradigm. The problem they run into is dependancy and sometimes complacency. I also don't think the group paradigm would work with adults too well. I think it should be a late stage addition to their retooling process. I think emphasis on textbook learning is horribly wrong much like evryone else does...even the teachers and students using it now. There are obviously better ways to learn but there is a social construct that exists between teacher and student...some thrive and some fail...the question is with the group paradigm...will it merely flip the failing to thriving or will some of those teacher's pets not benefit as greatly from a new system"

Tim - "INTERESTING AND FUN"
Me - "Everyone dreams of the eutopic state of everything. You know where grandpa is running in the poppey field while chidren sprinkle cool water on his ass, but I don't really see that when it comes to the new knowledge environment. I see increased freedom and less restrictions when it comes to gathering and applying information but I also see more stringent technology and more formal specs and regulations. Humans are humans and we just can't breed the inherent evil out of us yet. Too much freedom in the realm of learning can be a bad thing. Do you remember what the first curve on the old Boucher/Holmes curriculum was...professionalism...and that's no fun but it is essential! Some people see gardens of joyful slumber in their perfect system I see a Matrix with competetive games and smart people moving really fast"

Tim -"Learn as much from fellow students"
Me - "I think the source of all immediate information should come from a node (I love that by the way...no teachers just nodes...you are the coolest wordsmith!) and not from peers. Information can be wrong and waste time. Gossip or trends tend to be more luxurious and flashy than doing ELSE IF statements to figure out how a manufacturing line works. I love the idea...but I don't love the possible reprocussions of dis/useless information."

Tim -"Cheating"
Me - "Yeah cheating is essential I think. The more you can rip and tear from something the more you learn anyway, especially in computers. Hackers made Java so that they could just be lazy and cheat. That's what programming is and I think that's why programmers are usually a class of underachievers or old rejects, because programming is essentially trying to do something with minimal effort. Now that you have all these boyscout bastards in here doing programming it has become even better. When you combine the thought process of the programmer, which is essentially "What is the fastest way from A to B?", and combine with it Johnny Gungho's, "How do I make the boss or Joe Schmoe happy?" you can come up with some sort of wonderful product like Coldfusion, .NET, Photoshop. All these products stem from consumerism not the programmer. I mean look at what programmers love, green and black screens, lots of confusing stuff that apparently only "they" can decipher...now that's not coldfusion my friend. Remember what programming used to be...fortran, perl, TCP/Ip and now look at what it is...happy smiley icons and drag and drop...wonderful.~! But with these new products cheating becomes even easier because people are just giving it away...I want that guy who knows how to find it, implement it, use it, and then explain it. That's what I want to teach and cheating gets you the first three...education gets you the last one"


Link posted by JVMM : 2:33 AM