Hacker News Reader

One interesting aspect of the OLPC project is what it didn't attempt to do: to apply the theory of its design to first world countries that also have broad public education problems (I'm thinking specifically of the U.S.) I chalk it up to the idea that the revolution in education that the constructionists of the 60s and 70s thought would happen simultaneously along with the adoption of computing never came to pass. I can't stress enough how this vision of computing was supposed to go hand in hand with a more general transformation of education, rather than computing being its cause. I'm not sure, then, how that fit at all with the idea of pushing the technology (and none of the social or pedagogical changes) onto the third world.

> It was pretty clear that the constructionist vision of education that the OLPC folks were promoting made sense for SOME kids, who were bright and self-motivated, but it wasn't where most kids were.

Maybe the problem was that most of the kids' natural love of learning and creativity had already been extinguished by compulsory school. Or as Papert put it, "Children seem to be such remarkable learners on their own, but then they enter school."

> A few of the kids I was working with loved working on their own projects and discovering new things. But for most kids, just giving them tools and letting them play wasn't really going to result in the kind of learning and creative expression that Papert and his colleagues were promising

That’s the Media Lab in a nutshell. It attracts builders from all over the world. And it naturally selects for people that are self-learners.

If your goal is average kids, then sure, you need to focus on average kids. But I'd say the smart self-motivated kids are always the biggest bang for the buck in education. Sometimes I get a sense that people (not necessarily here) consider disproportionate success among geeks to imply a program is "backfiring".

> disproportionate success among geeks to imply a program is "backfiring".

Perhaps the logic is that the bright, self-motivated kids already have an advantage, so helping them get even further ahead is a net negative.

If society moves ahead by 100 points and the bright, self-motivated capture 75 of those points, I think that society is still better off.

What does "bang for the buck" in education mean specifically?

If we are thinking in terms of democratic societies here, then certainly the (utilitarian) point of education should be to raise the bar especially for the "average kids," shouldn't it? Don't we want a better average in a society that we all operate together? That's to say nothing of the richness in life that education can provide...

Raise the bar? Maybe they don't want to jump higher.

Not clear how the average is going to be "better" in any way by forcing them to.

> the richness in life that education can provide

The danger to deny the richness to those who can appreciate it.

Creating the next generation of tech workers and founders and just generally tech-savvy generation has value. I wouldn’t want to only import tech from the US.

Yes, and again, is that going to be the average student?

Not in any society on Earth yet.

I mean that the smart kids will show the most results for the same budget.

The utilitarian metric could also show that the average moves the most, and society benefits most, when those with the most potential can realize it. It's an interesting question. Either way though, I think it should be a basic constraint for an education system. Basically it's the same as saying classes should never be too slow for their students.

Bang for the buck in what sense? What “smart self-motivated” kid needs the help? Show us a computer screen just once and our life pattern is set.