Shewbox.org

At work in the main library on a bitter cold, slow winter morning.  Thought I’d find some new WordPress plugins.  You’ll see a del.ici.ous plugin on the right sidebar and I’ll test out an image gallery plugin using this post.

Reading a great interview with Alan Kay about computers and education, I came across this gem:

Q: What do you think of the current trend toward one-to-one computing in schools, in which every kid has his or her own laptop or handheld?
A: Well, that’s why I invented the idea of the Dynabook [Kay's 1968 prototype for a wirelessly networked, multimedia laptop]. That’s the whole point of that concept. As Seymour Papert once pointed out, just imagine the absurdity of a school that has only two pencils in each classroom. Or imagine a school where all the pencils are locked up in a special room.

But I think the big problem is that schools have very few ideas about what to do with the computers once the kids have them. It’s basically just tokenism, and schools just won’t face up to what the actual problems of education are, whether you have technology or not.

Think about it: How many books do schools have—and how well are children doing at reading? How many pencils do schools have—and how well are kids doing at math? It’s like missing the difference between music and instruments. You can put a piano in every classroom, but that won’t give you a developed music culture, because the music culture is embodied in people.

On the other hand, if you have a musician who is a teacher, then you don’t need musical instruments, because the kids can sing and dance. But if you don’t have a teacher who is a carrier of music, then all efforts to do music in the classroom will fail—because existing teachers who are not musicians will decide to teach the C Major scale and see what the bell curve is on that.

The important thing here is that the music is not in the piano. And knowledge and edification is not in the computer. The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas.

Educators have to face up to what 21st-century education needs to be about, and start thinking about solving that problem long before they bring the computer
on the scene.

On my rounds in the computer lab in the music library I ran across a book called Music Explained to the World by F.J Fetis, originally written in French.  Seeing the date 1844 stamped on the front (this copy was a newer printing) I opened it at the introduction and found Fetis’ thoughts interesting enough to post here (though by no means earth shattering):

Science is not born with us. No knowledge is so simple that we are not forced to acquire it either by experience or by education. This proposition, so true in every thing,  is indisputable in all that relates to art. The unpractised eye cannot distinguish the qualities or defects of a painting, nor the untutored ear the combinations of harmony. Undoubtedly, the habitual use of the eye and the ear is sufficient in many cases to enable us to perceive the beauties of painting or music; but this is in itself an education.

There is, however, a great difference between this vague feeling, which has no other origin than mere sensations, and that certainty of judgment which is the result of positive knowledge. Every art has its principles, which we must study, in order to increase our enjoyment, while we are forming our taste. Those of music are more complex than those of painting; and besides, music is at once a science and an art. This complexity renders the study of it long and difficult for those who wish to acquire a certain degree of skill. Unfortunately, it is scarcely possible to shorten the time which must be devoted to it. With whatever readiness we may be gifted, to whatever process we resort, whatever method we adopt, still it will be necessary to accustom our organs to read with ease the great number of characters of which musical writing is composed, to produce the prescribed tones with precision, to feel the division of the measures, and, finally, to combine all these elements of the art. Time alone can enable us to accomplish this.

But time is precisely that which we have the least at command in the course of life, especially in the present high state of civilization. Obliged to learn a multitude of things, we can give but very slight attention to each, and we are compelled to select those which will be most useful in the business of life.

The introduction continues on for a few more pages but I did not read more.  Google books has it if you want to take a gander for yourself.

I have 4 sticks of ram plugged into my motherboard for a total of 4 gigabytes.  And I know, I know, you will most likely not see all 4 gigs of it showing up in Vista.  But, still, it’s not fun when you have several programs open all using hundreds of megabytes of ram so you end up seeing something like this:

Grrrr