[Localization] [Educators] Empowering teachers

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Bastien <bzg at altern.org> wrote:
> Yama Ploskonka <yama at netoso.com> writes:
>
>> Let's work on interactive models for teacher training, that encourage
>> teacher-to-teacher collaboration, that encourage teachers exploring and
>> discovering, that enable teachers to contribute to other teachers
>> learning.
>
> Sure.
>
> But educational systems in *poor* countries tend to stick to their old
> model (I mean: more than less poor countries.)  You cannot expect such
> systems to change as quickly as systems where you can get volunteers,
> etc., where "community" has about the same meaning it has in FLOSS
> development.

That's what the Ministry thought in Peru. They were very surprised to
see collaboration taking root in the first week.

> Let's make this parallel: Free Software requires a rich environment to

Rich financially, or in spirit, or in opportunities, or what?

> thrive, and from an economical point of view, poor countries should be
> the first to benefit from it.  Similarily, new educational practices
> require a rich (social, intellectual, pedagogical) environment to be
> brought up, and poor countries should also be the first to benefit
> from it.

I expect to see a lot of that. The prosperous and comfortable are far
more hidebound than the poor.

> The problem is that implementing new educational practice is a bit
> more complex than downloading Free Software on the web!

Fortunately, downloading Free Software is the smallest part of this
project. And it is not that we must implement something, or everybody
else will get it wrong. The teachers are amazed and delighted at the
changes they see in the children and their parents, and want more of
it. Which the laptops enable them to do in collaboration with each
other and with the communities. And us, to be sure, but what do we
know?

> --
> Bastien
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>



-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay