mtl3p

on target

Mir is writing about the OLPC project and she linked to a wikipedia page criticizing the project. There’s criticism about the hardware, software, the costs and the environmental problems but nothing there about the pedagogy.

Googling for pedagogic criticism of OLPC I found this on the OLPC learning page - but in the “discuss” section of the page since the page is locked down.

“Constructionist learning is clearly a very progressive pedagogical foundation for OLPC, but to present it as the right way, the most effective way to learn, is a hegemonic imposition of moral proportions. To insist on constructionism is to insist that, “education means making creators. . . . You have to make inventors, innovators—not conformists,” as Piaget is quoted in Conversations with Jean Piaget (Bringuier, Jean Claude, 1980, p.132). And since most of the people contributing to this project are from societies, cultures, or at least educational systems that value this individualist, entrepeneurial, non-conformist esprit, we don’t question that it is universally good, and we don’t look for the good in traditionally conformist, communitarian cultures. Thus there is an underlying, unstated goal to OLPC, that is probably subconscious to most of the developers and contributors….”

from user Jdmitch. emphasis added.

it’s funny. I thought that we were supposed to be post-colonialist. Silly me.

here’s this criticism. It’s similar, but about the sometimes faulty engineer approach to problems.

I think the whole OLPC story fits more into The Constant Gardener than anything development related. Arrogant scientist thinks that he and his pal have *the* solution for learning. They are frustrated in NA because they’re ideas are too far ahead of their time to get buy in. As in:

“Papert lives in Maine, where he has founded a small laboratory called the Learning Barn to develop methods of learning that are too far ahead of the times for large-scale implementation.” - from his homepage. I guess everyone has to toot their own horn, eh? Even MIT profs.

Pair decides to take their show on the road to countries that don’t have pesky rules and processes that determine how and what is taught. In these countries they will find equally-outside-the-box partners and together they will vindicate the ideas of the two brave visionaries who will return home to see their plans put in motion in their own communities. Curtain falls.

Pretty much just the same story of a drug company going to developing countries to conduct trials because THE FDA JUST DOESN’T UNDERSTAND, GDAMMIT!!

The first sketchy thing I remember reading about the OLPC project was NN saying that the whole “textbook replacement” thing was just a scheme to get these countries to buy in and that the OLPC wasn’t about that at all. Not that I think it should be a textbook replacement, but the double-speak about the project just made me nervous.

It’s funny, what initiated my de-fetishization of tech was the over-the-top and unquestioning attitudes of the transhumanists and the OLPC project. It struck me that I really needed to be able to distinguish my own thoughts and methods from theirs.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “on target”

Stéphane Couture Says:
April 11th, 2008 at 2:40 am
And how do you distinguish them?
Michael Lenczner Says:
April 11th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
[sucking in air over teeth] hmm - I’m not too sure how to articulate it right now or even if it’s 100% clear in my head. I guess part of it is that the world is not something we can model. That kind of means that we need to through entire approaches out of the window. Also, compared to the transhumanists I’m not interested in the world as something perfectible. That’s all that I can think of right now.
Tracey Says:
April 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
We model in science to try and understand phenomena. There are global climate change models, environmental models, social demographic models, genetic models, forest regeneration models, energy consumption models, maps are models etc. None of these are perfect, they are all abstractions of the real world but of course not the real world itself, but they are means for us to comprehend one part of it and i am not sure i would want to toss them all.

I have been thinking about this post for sometime, and these days I even question literacy programs, in the sense that, why can’t we literates culturally accommodate and develop methods to communicate to illiterates in a way that is suitable for them, namely, if we have sign language and braille why not oral communication, and an infrastructure of scribes, narrators, story tellers etc. to share scientific, literary, health, nutritional, agricultural, political knowledge and information to those who cannot read or write. Could we not just broadcast this in the field via speakers, or theater, or radio, or…? Why do we have to remove people’s kids for a large part of the day from their homes, communities and fields etc. in developing countries to teach reading and writing and then mostly send them back to their class, homes, communities disconnected intellectually from their families? Just because of economic participate in the literate world? Now there was a scarry bit in Diamond age where the Leased Territory residents mostly go information fed to them via images and symbols, which put them at a disadvantage with the literates. However, what if we valued different modes of communicating and just thought of doing that in the same way we do not think the blind or hearing impaired as being intellectually inferior.

Being that as it may, we do not have a global system in place to deal with particularities very well at the moment, so we move toward universal models, and tools - like reading and writing or computer platforms. And i wonder if I had the choice of whether or not my kids had access to an OLPC or not while i was in a rural and remote area, i was poor and wanted to give them a change in the present world what would i do? Is it better or worse than TV, which is ubiquitous in the 3rd world as are f…ing rambo movies? My young Naga friends know more about western pop culture than i do, as there is little about themselves anywhere nor the access to the tools and infrastructures to tell their own stories. What if the olpc allowed people to write their own stories and find news ways to communicate them?

It is all political economy, and having been to a few 3rd world classrooms, there are no textbooks anyway, so there is not much replacing going on and if there are, they are dated 1962!

I just accessed a bunch of historical books on jStor about naga folklore, politics, sociology etc. content that my naga friends currently do not have access to because a) they are not a member of a university that has a membership to that service, b) if they did there would not be any computers and c) because in nagaland the libraries do not exist and if they do there is no naga material in them, and if they do they are far from the rural classroom, d) there are no archives with that material in them.

So, maybe the olpc and the hutzpah around open access journals etc. might get them that material.

And well, the transhumanists are a weird bunch, but that does not make tec bad! We are all cyborgs as our habitats are intrically interconnected with massive infrastructures. To go canoeing in the woods you still rely on the car, fuel, the road, a map, food, and a forest/lake/river park protection infrastructure.

I think a more interesting question is what technology for what purpose, to meet what ends and the intentions.

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