heroes and villains-would be a well-meaning
attempt to use books, computers or other representational media as "delivery
vehicles." There could be videodiscs showing plant and animal growth,
and the students could have network access to data about crop yields,
taxonomies of animals and plants, and so forth. But why substitute a
"music appreciation" approach for the excitement of direct
play? Why teach "science and math appreciation," when the
children can more happily (and to better effect) actually create whole
worlds?
What is great in biology and humankind's other grand investigations
cannot be "delivered." But it can be learned-by giving students
direct contact with "the great chain of being," so that they
can internally generate the structures needed to hold powerful ideas.
Media of all kinds can now be used to amplify the learning experience,
whereas before they acted as a barrier to the "good stuff."
The Open School is nothing if not straightforward. Because "things
that grow" is the essence of what is called |
the Life Lab program, the children made
a garden, tearing up part of their asphalt playground to get good clean
dirt. The third graders, while in the midst of their city-building project,
spent months modeling and debating designs for the garden. They ultimately
arrived at a practical, child-scaled pattern featuring a herringbone-shaped
walkway that puts every plot in reach.
Not surprisingly, the children found that the simulation capability
of their computers helped them examine the merits of many different
walkway designs. Like modern-day architects, they used the computer
to help construct models of their ideas. Teachers Dolores Patton and
Leslie Barclay facilitated the process, but it was the children who
came up with the ideas.
There are many Life Lab schools in California. Because they are engaged
in similar pursuits, they have things to say to one another. For them,
networks serve as much more than a conduit for retrieving fixed data;
they allow students to develop knowledge of their own collaboratively.
For example, it is easy to make one's own weather maps |
on the basis of simultaneous recordings
of temperature and barometric pressure and the like and to argue via
network about what the maps mean.
Computer animation can be used to ponder the patterns more readily.
A fairly easy inference is that pressure changes seem to go from west
to east. Could this have anything to do with the rotation of the earth?
The directions of winds are more complicated, since they are more affected
by features of the terrain. Do they match up with pressure changes?
We can go still deeper. Children are capable
of much depth and attention to quality when they are thinking about
questions that seem important to them. Why do animals do what they do?
Why do humans do what we do? These are vital issues. Close observation,
theories and role playing help. Reading books about animal behavior
helps. The teacher can even explain some ideas of the Nobel laureate
Niko Tinbergen, such as the suggestion that animal behavior is organized
into modules of innate patterns. |
