[Etoys] Some thought about Operational thinking and Squeak

[Ken Ritchie]

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:

> ...snip...
>
> What we mostly don't have is a path by which children can be guided to
> discover much of this themselves. But we have bits and pieces of that
> path in work by Alan Kay, Seymour Papert and many others. I have
> thought of a few other bits that I hope will add to the enterprise
> when I get a chance to work them out in more detail and try them out
> on children.



Here is link to *Boxes and Arrows*, October, 2005:
[begin]
Studying the Creation of Kindergarten
By Bill Lucas
How does the pursuit of one man's interests result in the creation of
kindergarten and timeless design principles? Bill Lucas shows us how
Friedrich Fröbel took basic elements to create intricate, scalable  systems
that can serve as a model for creating new experiential systems  today.
http://boxesandarrows.com/archives/studying_the_creation_of_kindergarten.php
[end]

Edward Cherlin continues...

>
> I think that the hard question is how to get teachers to discover
> enough of this to be able to use is effectively. Nobel laureate
> Richard Feynman said that we don't really understand a subject unless
> we can create freshman lecture on it. Mathematicians suggest trying to
> explain ideas to your grandmother. I propose that we find out how much
> of what we think we know we can explain to children and to teachers.
>

Yes!  My favorite triplet of quotes from Albert Einstein on this theme is...
1. "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is
comprehensible."
2. "If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough."
3. "It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid."

Cheers,
--ken ritchie (atlanta)

Personal DISCLOSURE:
I am enamored by Kindergarten (in the US) and Montessori schools,
to a great extent because my wife is a veteran K through 3 teacher,
and from all reports quite an extraordinary, remarkable one at that!
We also had great *fun* raising two creative, articulate daughters.
;-)

"I am still learning." --Michaelangelo
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