{"id":2372,"date":"2011-09-26T09:18:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T14:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2020-07-25T18:58:57","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T23:58:57","slug":"super-awesome-sylvia-in-the-less-than-awesome-land-of-schooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=2372","title":{"rendered":"Super-Awesome Sylvia in the Not So Awesome Land of Schooling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warning: Educators will be criticized below!<\/span> <\/strong><\/em>You have been warned.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Recently, a friend sent me a link to an episode of Sylvia\u2019s Super-Awesome Maker Show<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 In this whimsical YouTube video, eight year-old Sylvia teaches you about designing, engineering and programming a variety of projects using the open-source Arduino robotics controller<\/a>. With the poise, wit and clarity of a seasoned television host, Sylvia explains the electronic principles of light\u2013emitting diodes, resisters, potentiometers, grounds and compiling the program you download to create a strobe light. Next, she teaches viewers how to construct a Randomly Influenced Finger Flute that uses a square wave at a variable number of hertz to make the Arduino play music.<\/p>\n

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This is no burping into VoiceThread!<\/em><\/p>\n

Sylvia disposes of the ISTE technology standards in the first fourteen seconds of her video. By following her motto, \u201cHave fun, play around and get out there and make something,\u201d she learns a host of powerful ideas, engages countless habits of mind and demonstrates her knowledge by constructing something shareable. Sylvia\u2019s video embodies Seymour Papert\u2019s theory of constructionism. In fact, many of the fluencies displayed by Sylvia are discussed in Papert and Solomon\u2019s 1971 paper, \u201cTwenty Things to Do with a Computer<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you dare tell me that the demands of the curriculum preclude time for such classroom projects. Kids like Sylvia remind us of the authentic nature of learning and the efficiency of project-based learning. Several years worth of lectures on physics, electronics, engineering, computer science and video production would not result in the understanding demonstrated by Sylvia; that is if elementary schools bothered to teach such subjects at all.<\/p>\n

Engineering is concrete. Engineers make things. They experiment and tinker. If you know anything about development you recognize that knowledge construction follows a progression from concrete to the abstract. Yet, most kids are deprived of engineering experiences until they endure twelve years of abstractions. If the creative inclinations of young children were nurtured in an engineering context, their understanding of the increasingly elusive math and science facts would be developed in a meaningful natural context.<\/p>\n

Sylvia\u2019s father is an accomplished technology expert. So what? Public schools are designed to democratize specialized learning experiences for all children. If Sylvia was doing little more than reading off a teleprompter, then her performance would still exceed our expectations. Yet, she demonstrates so much more.<\/p>\n

Sylvia embodies the spirit of the exploding DIY movement with the creativity of the Little Rascals and curiosity of Mr. Wizard. She\u2019s just using the construction materials of her era. The difference is the power of computational thinking and microprocessors. Arduino microcontrollers are the Barbies of her generation.<\/p>\n

The high crime is that kids like Sylvia will be in seventh grade, four years from now, where the curriculum awaiting them will be worthless concoctions like keyboarding instruction or \u201cusing the Google.\u201d We insult children\u2019s intelligence and squander their potential by serving up a curriculum of \u201ccomputer appreciation\u201d dependent on adult inadequacies or misallocated resources.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are lots of computers in schools, but very little computing! Three decades ago, I dedicated my life to using computers constructively to amplify human potential. Back then, educational computing was built on progressive learning theories, propelled by passion of the civil rights movement and based on a notion that children could invent a better world than existed for previous generations. Sadly, I no longer recognize my own field. The powerful ideas of Dewey, Holt, Papert, not to mention Al Rogers, David Thornburg, Tom Snyder, Fred D\u2019Ignzaio and Tom Snyder \u2013 have been replaced by a focus on filtering policies, meaningless clich\u00e9s about 21st Century skills and funding concerns. I often wonder, \u201cis edtech\/ICT a legitimate discipline or just a shopping club?\u201d Too many educational technology conferences, like ISTE, seem like a busload of foreign tourists speeding past historical monuments in order to get to the next duty-free shop.<\/p>\n

While your district tech team wrestles with the earth-shattering decision over whether kids should write their five-paragraph essay in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, kids could be doing and learning like Sylvia. While you bathe in the warmth of your PLN with self-congratulatory tweets, Sylvia is sharing serious expertise with the world.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of district tech directors, coordinators and integrators have done such a swell job that after thirty years, teachers are the last adults in the industrialized world to use computers. I feel compelled to ask, “Are the very same employees charged with inspiring teachers to use computers creating dependency and helplessness instead?”<\/p>\n

Teachers are not imbeciles incapable of growth or felons who can\u2019t be trusted to show Sylvia\u2019s YouTube video in class. Each summer\u2019s Constructing Modern Knowledge Institute<\/a> demonstrates the creativity and intellectual capacity of educators when they are engaged in projects involving programming, robotics materials, microcontrollers, drawing tablets, musical bananas, soda can orchestras, bike powered LEGO iPhone chargers, animation, filmmaking, authentic problems and whimsy<\/a>. During the 1980s, we taught tens of thousands of teachers computer programming and how to teach it to children.<\/p>\n

Educators love the stories of the eleven year-old dot.com millionaire and Web stars, like Sylvia, but would you really want her in your class? Can you build upon the gifts the kids bring to you or will you force them to comply with someone else\u2019s curriculum? Would you punish her or classify her with a learning disability for a failure to sit quietly as school repeals the 20th Century?<\/p>\n

Failure to embrace the kids\u2019 competence, capacity and creativity leads educators to deprive children of opportunities to achieve their potential. Worst of all, it cheats children out of the rich 21st Century childhood they deserve.<\/p>\n