Programming the VCR

As we have gone through the "digital revolution" we have heard the scenario many times about how the only ones that can program the VCR are our kids. I was reading an excerpt from Seymour Papert's book, The Connected Family, where he describes how his grandsone went to the shelf, grabbed a VCR tape, put it in the VCR and began to watch the video. What he found astonishing at first was that the 3 year old noticed that the tape wasn't rewound and did that before getting himself comfortable.

This would have astounded me too up until a few months ago, when my five year old began doing the same thing. Jackson routinely pops in a tape when he wants to watch things and frequently helps Ma and Pa figure out our satellite system.

What does astound me is a very recent change in my youngest son's (Parker) actions. At least 2-3 times a day, we now wants to play the "puter". Although his sentences are not yet complete and his pronounciation is still best understood by his older brother ("Jackson, do you know what Parker is talking about?") he is a wiz at playing the "puter".

I have noticed many differences in the way Parker interacts with the computer than what his old brother does. mUch of it comes down to personality. Jackson is a very hard-headed, perfectionist. If things don't go his way the first time, he gets very frustrated and quits. Parker is the opposite. Very much the explorer, Parker will keep trying things, not caring much whether it works or not.

The last few days have seen a dramatic increase in parker's computer usage. He "plays" for close to an hour each day. His favorite titles have been the Reader Rabbit series. He changes CD's like we do his diapers without regard to properly shutting programs down or damaging the OS. I have seen a lot of blue screens this past week!

What is amazing is that Parker will continue to want to play games such as Reader Rabbit Kindergarten which my 5 year old has said is too hard! Parker doesn't care if he is doing it correctly! He just likes clicking and controlling the computer.

Clicking and Controlling - this sounds like a title for a new book. The theory behind it continues to tie in to a paper I completed as part of my master's work that was called "The Changing Nature of Learning". In this paper I briefly explained my thoughts on how technology will finally help change education because it is fundamentally changing the way people learn. Over the past 1,000 years, people have learned in much the same style. This is not true now.

Why is this? I believe it ties into some of the things Glasser talked about in "Schools without Failure". School is the first place that students learn failure. If they continue to receive less than postive feedback through their actions during the course of the school day...most children will begin to adapt to the style and mannerisms neccesary in school to achieve positive results. Those that don't adapt to this style usually don't succeed.

Today's youth live in a world filled with many more opportunities for postive feedback. If they don't receive much reinforcement at school, they can still go home and "Click and Control". This positive feeback from their digital experiences provides the motivation to struggle against forced change. A child that can interact/create/imagine/learn in their own digital world doesn't need as much from the contrived world of schooling.

We can't continue to change the innate learning style of discovery and inquiry that every child is born with. In the past, it was possible because the only way people could continue to feed their desire for learning was to succeed in school long enough to get a degree and then do what they want to do. Today's youth can learn about what they want, whenever, however, adn from whomever they choose.

So...the changing nature of learning isn't necessarily correct either...we are born learning one way...school forces us to learn another...then we go back to the original after school is out. This difference is that now even when we are in school, we can continue to learn by discovery and inquiry at the same time as we are failing at school!

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