On Vocationalism

I recently read a transcript of a very old interview with computer education visionary, Alan Kay, about what needed and still needs to happen to make computer-assisted learning a success. Some of his conclustions made me realize that no matter how old or young the student is, the bottleneck is usually the educator.

"Virtually all learning difficulties that children face are caused by adults' inability to set up reasonable environments for them. The biggest barrier to improving education for children, with or without computers, is the completely impoverished imaginations of most adults. - Alan Kay"

With our society's constant fixation on terms like "job security" and, as Kay puts it, "vocationalism," students are often forced down a path that develops competency in a trade, but fails to foster the curiosity and intuition that lead to a lifelong love of learning.

It always used to bother me when people would ask what I wantned to be when I grew up. It wasn't because I didn't know or was scared of the future - it was actually the opposite - I had too many things in mind for myself. As Robert Heinlein said in Time Enough for Love, "Specialization is for insects."

It seems that as soon as technology invades the classroom, we shift from emphasizing conceptual learning to prioritizing tactical skills. I say, "Why not both?" Check out the interview with Kay to challenge your thoughts about how and why we should be educating.

So rather than trying to create scenes like this one:


We should be striving for this:



(Disclaimer - the prior image comparison does not an any way represent any hostility toward OLPC, which I feel is one of the most important efforts of the 21st century.)