Learning Learning/Parable 2
Parable 2
One Pencil Per Classroom
Imagine that writing has just been invented in Foobar, a country that has managed to develop a highly sophisticated culture of poetry, philosophy and science using entirely oral means of expression. It occurs to imaginative educators that the new technology of pencils, paper and printing could have a beneficial effect on the schools of the country. Many suggestions are made. The most radical is to provide all teachers and children with pencils, paper and books and suspend regular classes for six months while everyone learns the new art of reading and writing. The more cautious plans propose starting slowly and seeing how "pencil-learning" works on a small scale before doing anything really drastic. In the end, Foobarian politicians being what they are, a cautious plan is announced with radical fanfare: Within four years a pencil and a pad of paper will be placed in every single classroom of the country so that every child, rich or poor, will have access to the new knowledge technology. Meantime the educational psychologists stand by to measure the impact of pencils on learning.
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- (comment) The rhetorical trick behind this learning parable is quite obvious, and it is supposed to make you despise the befuddled politicians that just cannot see the radical goodness of pencils and papers. Poor confused politicians. While we, the smart readers, laugh. And we are supposed to apply this parable to the OLPC machine. But let us suppose that there was one Foobarian politician that said Say, why don't we try this radical pencil and paper tech in a couple of pilot schools? After all, it is not as if it were cheap, and in a few years we will see whether it is good or not. We don't want to repeat the mistake made when we tried massive adoption of the chisel-hammer-slab technology, and kids kept getting their fingers squashed. Not to mention the noise.
- Would that politican be doing a service or a disservice to Foobar?