Kim,
this seems to be a so far undiscussed domain and I have some concerns.
First off: the English usage mixes up 'education' with 'teaching'. Schools
have a task to transform unformatted teen-beasts into constructive beings,
what I call 'education'. That may be a very controversial thing, because the
aim of such transformation may be questionable (by many) - e.g. in the
Ottoman Empire the education of the Janissaries produced uniform and
brainwashed efficient killers. But this is subject to intelligent
evaluation.
Secondly: relying on 'online' provided knowledge eliminates the shame of the
student (Sorry, teach, I did not do my homework) - which is a powerful
educational momentum in raising responsible people. More importantly the
'piped' ('wired', or rather: 'wirelessed') science is uncontrolled and
depends on the choosing skill of the 'pupil' - if he so decides.
There are benedits (besides weaknesses, of course) in having a 'live and
knowledgeable' teacher who verbally and demostratingly interacts with his
pupils. Benefit: experience and accumulated knowledge plus the chance to
simultaneously "educate" (see above). Weakness: the choice WHAT is to be
included in such 'knowledge' to be taught.
I fully agree with 'creative thinking' to be included. What happened to
those who have no resonance to the selected versions of it? (They may be
very talented in different domains). E.g. in a music school 'composing' may
be considered the 'creative', what only a fraction of talented musicians can
muster (master?). How many Eifels. Fultons, Bunsens were among the many
million engineers who were instrumental in developing our advanced
technology? Creativity should be encouraged, not made a fundmental in
'education'. Disciplined well-founded professional knowoledge should
prevail.
This maybe a bit conservative position of mine has a side-line to feed it:
electronic libraries cannot replace a hard-copy self-stored one and this is
obvious to all who worked with old fashioned libraries successfully. The
main benefit: if you can stand before the shelf of the particular topic and
browse SOME similar-topic BOOKS you get ideas what you can check
instantaneously in a neighboring book - or in the same book sticking your
finger to the page where you were. No Googling from 3,467,390 (or more)
entries. Electronics is good for checking and responding once the topic is
fixed. Even in responding you get only to a select audience, not as with an
experienced teacher, who 'knows' the different schools under divers keys.
All that is hard to explain to the generation which never did efficient
research using old fashioned hard-copy libraries' lit-search. Whoever did
not experienced "better" will not accept that it can exist.
I wonder if Bruno would like to give a list of URLs to youngsters and tell
them: "here is math/physics, learn it!" - I will teach only UDA and further.
I appreciate the efforts vested into AI - as preparatory for the time when
we really (will) know the "I" (intelligence and its workings) to make an
artificial approach for its mechanisation. Maybe a better contraption is
also needed for such than our present binary embryonic - level toy.
John M
On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Kim Jones <kimjones.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=10240&m=41581
>
> Universities and schools should now re-invent themselves. We no longer need
> any "institution" to dole out knowledge because all (non-fuzzy factual)
> knowledge can be downloaded from the Net.
>
> Education can now only have a future by teaching skills - meaning: what you
> DO with that knowledge, also how to invent the future without having to
> continually compare every new idea to existing knowledge - the current
> paradigm and way too slow. Time is running out fast.
>
> Hint: teach creative thinking
>
> Huh? What's that? Don't we already do that? etc.
>
>
> cheers,
>
> Kim Jones
>
>
> There are no *surprising facts about reality*, only *models* of it that
> are *surprised by* facts
>
>
>
>
> Email:
> kmjcommp.domain.name.hidden
> kimjones.domain.name.hidden
>
> Web:
> http://web.mac.com/kmjcommp/Plenitude_Music
>
> Phone:
> (612) 9389 4239 or 0431 723 001
>
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Tue Mar 10 2009 - 11:40:25 PDT