[OLPC-Chicago] Home schoolers and XOs

[Robert Myers]

>>  In the Chicago O'Hare airport on my way to PyCon last month, I offered
>> >  a child a chance to try an XO. His mother wouldn't let him touch it,
>> >  because she is a Christian home-schooler. (The boy turned on his
>> >  mother and said, "I hate you." She said, "No, you don't," which is no
>> >  doubt true, but not helpful.)
> 
> Is this a common attitude among home schoolers? I have not written
> home about PyCon yet because I've been so busy, but I am excited at
> the prospect of being able to share ideas from the OLPC community with
> my sister, who is home schooling her kids, and who is also very
> religious.
> 
> I was thinking it would be neat if I could buy some XOs for my nieces
> and nephews (or perhaps some low cost laptops with similar programs,
> or perhaps even a live cd that they could use on the family desktop)
> and if any of them enjoyed programming I could provide help (though
> they live in Texas while I am in Chicago).
> 

I'm a model railroader, and I've installed JMRI (Java Model Railroad 
Interface) on My XO. This is a program (simplistically) to allow 
computer control of model railroad layout. Two weeks ago I was showing a 
layout at a public show, and used my XO and JMRI to control it.

This, as you'd expect, led to some very interesting conversations. One 
was with a family that seemed really knowledgeable about education and 
was interested in the educational aspects of the XO. The father 
mentioned that he had just gotten a new laptop for his classroom. I 
asked if he was a teacher. He answered, no that they were home schoolers 
and this was the last major piece of equipment for their home classroom.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is not to paint all Christian home 
schoolers with the same brush. There are likely some folks trying to 
protect little Janie from the outside world. There are others that are 
honestly trying to provide an excellent education for their kids.

It sure would be interesting to have direct sales of XOs and try to 
evangelize the home school community to accept them. Either that or get 
Sugar and XO activities running on more conventional laptops.

One laptop per child doesn't have to be in 100,000 child increments.

Bob

JMRI: http://jmri.sourceforge.net/
Northwest N-Trak (my club): http://www.nwntrak.org/
HighWheeler (the show in question): 
http://www.foxvalleydivision.org/newfoxwebpagefiles/highwheeler.htm