Some discussion on education

[Yoshiki Ohshima]

  Thank you for your comment, Chris,

> Let's exclude reading/writing, math and drawing, since they're aimed
> at by traditional education.  What could be a higher-bandwidth way
> for children to learn about the rest of the list than to have a global
> video conversation with each other, child to child, finding out what's
> different between them and children in other countries, and why?

  * These non-universal things were all "inventions".  And, it took
    for the human being hundreds of thousands of years. ("Kids are not
    going to invent calculus.")  For most of these ideas, we needed
    some geniuses to invent it; but once it is invented, people who
    are reasonably well educated can learn, understand, and extend it.
    The education is about getting kids on that track.

  * Similarly, it is nice for kids in different cultures can talk to
    each other; however, their learning is not going to be real.  If
    some kids get trapped in their own superstitious view on the other
    people, we should think a way to mentor/guide them to get over it.
    The video chat should be thought to be a tool for that part
    (guiding kids to aim higher threshold), but not simple
    communication tool.

  * I heard that when McLuhan coined the term "the global village", he
    didn't mean it to be a good progress for human being.  Providing
    just a higher-bandwidth way (just providing an amplifier for
    things that human is inherently capable of) would be rahter just
    giving a TV set.

-- Yoshiki