As always Linda, you pack a lot into a small space. Most of us drawn to a discussion about learning and education are interested in both improving overall rates of literacy and improving rates of learning. That last bit isn't quite clear, what I mean is that if people could better learn to learn we all could be more facile.

I studied to be a teacher, and was good at my studies and not so good as a teacher. I've been using a computer for about ten years, but I'm very much like your colleagues in not really having learned to use one.

John Udel wrote and interesting post recently Technical mastery requires social innovation:

A number of times, recently, I’ve made an assertion with which nobody has disagreed. The assertion is that if we invented no new information technologies for the next five or ten years, we could nevertheless move the ball significantly forward by consolidating gains that we should have made by now, but haven’t. My argument is that what people don’t know and seemingly cannot learn about computers, software, and information systems represents what Amory Lovins, speaking in terms of energy, calls negawatts, a resource whose value springs not from new production but from the rethinking and improved utilization of existing resources.

Linda points to both class size and the sort of engagement necessary in classes. Like I say I really enjoyed being a student of education, and I probably would have continued my education had I not had a hunch I wasn't going to be a good teacher. Another reason was a real dissatisfaction with educational research. So much of seems so awful that I'm afraid I tend to tar the whole lot. But recently I saw a piece on research about philosophy for kids:

Teaching children the art of collaborative philosophical inquiry brings them persistent, long-term cognitive benefits, according to psychologists in Scotland.

This goes to Linda's point about the sorts of encouragement helpful in helping students learn to learn. What connects that to Udel's post and reasonably smart people like me who cannot seem to master the wonderful computer tools at my disposal is the focus on the social context of learning rather than some technical fix.

In part this discussion grows out of a debate about the One Laptop Per Child initiative. And in that debate finding the right mix between the technical and social seems the real bone of contention. To the developers of the XO's credit the social Web influenced their ideas about the software, connecting to a school of constructivism in education and psychology. But in the main, the social learning to learn using the XO on the ground is left to be discovered.

So the problem isn't just how do we help the children learn, but how do we as people develop ways of learning to meet the many challenges we all face?

As I was rereading this I realized that I wrote:

Thai kindergarten students learn how to add long columns of numbers with carrying and subtract with borrowing but can't figure out what the aggregate demand is given how much of the product each buyer wants.

Please let me clarify that I did not expect kindergarten students to be able to calculate aggregate demand. My college sophomores can't do that even though they could do that kindergarten stuff years and years ago.

One of the questions that arises in my mind is, is there a way to use those OLOP computers to connect people to individuals anywhere that would provide them that one-on-one dialog that is required to learn how to ask and answer questions and motivate people to want to solve problems and figure out solutions?

Is there maybe a way to set up a volunteer mentoring community (that gets some training, maybe) to help a child in these despicable learning conditions get past it all?

Computer games and software are not the answer for these children ... I don't think. Somewhere in my gut, I feel that fire is the answer. How do we set the fire and keep it going?

>>How do we set the fire and keep it going?<<

Look to models that have worked in that past.

One reason Negroponte is so ken on the OLPC is he sees it as an object that children will want to go to school to be able to have.

I'm just too old, I missed computer games altogether, and role playing games too. Maybe it's not just my age, my older sister is an avid computer game player. Geez my aunt who seems to know nothing about computers is too. A friend teaches intro-computer courses at the community college. One of the courses is the basics of the Internet, which is primarily for elderly people. The first thing she does is have them open the games on the computer--often to hostile comments like: "I didn't come here to learn games!" The reason she does this is she's found it the fastest way to train people to use the mouse, something that creates more problems if people aren't comfortable.

Games have a role. I'm not so fond of them, but they can be important learning tools. And they can be something that sets the fire going.

I'm very eager to talk about setting up a volunteer mentoring community. But I'm particularly interested in dialogs with teachers. Actually not just teachers, but accountants, nurses and professions that are too often not given their due.

Are you familiar with the OER Commons? I like the idea quite a lot. But there needs to be a community to it, and when it comes to community, size and location matters. Now as you point out Thailand is near the top as far as statistics go, but still could use attention. Something like an OER Commons for Thailand would first of all have media in in Thai and other local languages. So the interface with Anglophones and others would require another layer. But it certainly seems possible.

I tend to think that one of the fastest ways to get young learners into helpful online mentoring is for the teachers to discover the social Web first.

A little far afield, but I was reminded tonight of a conversation at Creek Running North:

The short version: how can one bond children with nature and their environment, so that they will clutch at the treasures imperiled by climate change?

In response to the comments I set up a Wiki Natural Loving Kids. I rather knew nobody would use it, but there was some interest expressed in the conversation. In any case anyone with an interest in environmental education for young people is welcome to post: password earthkids.

Participation makes for participation. The development and collection of curriculum materials on any subject is something that lends itself to online collaboration. I'll go where the action is, so tell us if any of you have similar projects.

I am certainly no educationalist, but I have been a youth leader historically for a lengthy period of time, so I speak more from an experience of how play is used to balance focused work and also, as was mentioned by John, how play can be used to encourage participation. I struggle strategically with whether you should focus on the children who are in school in Africa, or those who aren't, as one's prime focus, as neither are being well served.

This use of play for participation is not restricted to children, of course. I recently introduced the most popular course at an work experience training centre in the UK, which was on "graphic design", knowing that the work training was designed to attract people in who were long-term unemployed, rather than provide an obvious job route. This job placement was just as good as any other at placing people in work, incidentally, just not in graphic design, but it drew in those most disadvantaged groups, who spent much of their days playing videogames.

There is plenty of research linking play to cognitive development and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jea n_Piaget is probably a good place to start for those looking at this for the first time. My mother has also historically done a great deal of research on the subject of play strategy for the government in the UK, so I may ask her to comment on the thread.

Lastly, my next contribution to the thread comes from a recent conversation with Coop College UK, who are running to CoopAfrica programme (I think) in East Africa at the moment. They were saying that the approach of educationalists in Africa was not generally a participatory one, where the learner contributes to the learning and they felt that this was key in cooperative training for cooperative members, as generally the members knew more about the practical operation of cooperatives than their lecturers did and so a team effort on the training produced better results. I suppose it is debatable whether this "college approach" can be ported to children, but I suspect that it can.

Maybe this approach does not work with very large class sizes, however. Children in Africa seem to be disciplined by their elders rather more than here and there could be a logical reason for this, which I lack the experience to comment on. What is clear, though, is that the XO laptop is "participatory" and this could lead to some impact on the teaching methodology in schools, either negatively, or I hope positively.

As a controversial point to finish with, I often feel that teachers are not the best people to comment on child development, at least not holistically. The teaching process and methodology when ingrained to me impacts on the perception of what is right for children. Day after day of teaching children might tend to from necessity create a teacher-pupil discriminatory barrier, which is perhaps more evident in Africa than anywhere else I have seen. My belief is that, where possible, this barrier should be removed to benefit the learning of children, particularly if gifted and talented children are involved (albeit not exclusively.) Whilst boundaries are important for children, they should not be used at will.

Mark Grimes said:

>>How do we set the fire and keep it going?<<

Look to models that have worked in that past.

But what models are we looking at?

If you look at the list of higher education institutions attended by or graduating Nobel Laureates, you would find less than a handful that are in Asia or Africa.

I am sure there is a lot of filtering that happens prior to these schools though as there are a number of Asian and African recipients of the Nobel Prizes.

I suspect (how is that for authoritative?) that the key is inquisitiveness. I also suspect that that inquisitiveness is fostered very young. It would be interesting to know if problem solvers were natural questioners or if they had examples early in life. Were the asked questions and encouraged to seek answers by parents, friends or teachers?

I talked about this yesterday with some of my fellow graduate students and another member of the faculty here. They agreed that question asking is not a featured or even commendable trait in Thai schools. It has been pointed out to me that asking a question of a teacher here is an insult and tantamount to saying the teacher is a failure because they didn't explain something well enough.

I thought of this again last evening as I was reading Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen. He insists that people as individuals and societies must be allowed to question all things that impact their lives including traditional values. I think this is a classic case of an traditional value that would fall if allowed to be questioned.

Here in Thailand, I see a resistance to some westernization because it changes the traditional culture. It doesn't matter if it is a good change or not because the discussion never gets that far. It is an argument that goes something like "these traditions define who we are and to change the traditions (be it even things a simple as speaking as different language in order to facilitate business transactions, wearing different clothes or eating different food) will steal who we are."

I am rambling. These issues are so complex and I am not sure they need to be.

Has anyone else seen similar things in other locations? What are other peoples thoughts and ideas?

I would go so far as to say the quality of questions we ask in our lives determines the overall quality of life we live overall.

How do I get food today?

What is a better solution to that problem?

What is the best solution to that problem, and what might be a better solution in 12 months?

What is a solution no one has thought of yet?

How can my business get more customers?

How can my business get more revenue from the customers it already serves?

Now I'm rambling.

To get answers to problems never solved before we must ask questions that have never been asked before.

Linda Nowakowski said:

Here in Thailand, I see a resistance to some westernization because it changes the traditional culture. It doesn't matter if it is a good change or not because the discussion never gets that far. It is an argument that goes something like "these traditions define who we are and to change the traditions (be it even things a simple as speaking as different language in order to facilitate business transactions, wearing different clothes or eating different food) will steal who we are."

I think you are being very generous to call this "traditions." For sure feudalism used to be part of our traditions, but really it was more about discrimination and disempowerment. Solicitors and other professions still practise these "self-serving" strategies, and teachers used to place themselves on pedestals in the Dickens era.

I'm infuriated by the pedestal "culture", when actually it is about equality and people actually deserving a good education, not feeling that they are lucky to get it. Nor should one expect to be thanked when one provides it.

So, I propose that it is not change of a country's cultural identity, but a natural development of empowerment.

Talking about learning is difficult because there's so much to talk about and it's not always easy to figure out where to put up fences to demarcate the boundaries of what to talk about. Often talking about learning devolves into arguments; take reading instruction for example.

Quite a while back (probably late in the administration of Bush the father)I remember being struck by TV news report over a battle over textbook selection. A school district had selected a reading textbook series and a concerted effort from the religious right was launched to oppose it. The segment showed a woman in tears rise to say she didn't want her children corrupted by "homosexual deconstructionsist."

I was rather shocked by her emotional reaction.

Reading texts are a form of literature by committee. The teacher's editions are so thick because the lessons are keyed to learning objectives, and there are hundreds of those. The whole process of putting together the series is an expensive undertaking not only because so many are involved in the complex process of making them, but also to purchase the rights for the reading matter and illustrations. There are never very many reading series for schools to choose from, and buying a new series is quite expensive.

At the time I hadn't caught on to the notion that "deconstructionism" had become a code word on the right. I was operating on the premise that literary criticism, and university departments of English, had little influence on making reading texts.

A too short summary of deconstruction is human artifacts are subject to interpretation.

I do not doubt that the woman's concern in the TV report was sincere. Many Americans believe that the Bible contains the Word of God and that the proper response is to adhere to the literal meaning.

For the religious right deconstruction seemed to be asserting: "There is no God" and equated with Marxism. It seems the concern that weeping woman over the text books is similar to Thai concerns that Linda points to that transgression against tradition "will steal who we are."

I was reminded of a great essay by James Baldwin My Dungeon Shook. It was a letter he sent to his teenage nephew. Baldwin wrote:

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shinning and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is our of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.

I love Baldwin's essay because I imagine meaning in relationships. Even thinking religiously, while I'm not religious my upbringing was in a Christian home, my sense is the really important parts aren't commands and predestination, but rather responses and creativity.

Baldwin responds with compassion and empathy towards those whose identity is linked to "fixed stars." When it comes to education many people think that it's all about learning where those "fixed stars" are; it's a matter that the "truth" is out there.

I think that hubbub about deconstruciton was all rather overblown; the ideas for children making meaning being more closely aligned with a different stream of thought than Continental Philosophy. Indeed progressive education has a long American history. And it was that history that came to mind when Mark suggested we look to models that have worked in the past.

I studied elementary education. In most of my class I was the only man or one of just a few. I was never very clear why, but the women didn't like me very much. I think it's a bit strange that in talking about foundations of education those ideas are most often associated with men. Caroline Pratt is a major figure in American progressive education. I was looking around for links and it seems she's not well-known. But I was pleased to see in one of the links a reference to her as one of the "founding mothers" of progressive education. The pretension that education is something our fathers taught us seems to defy the ordinary experience of education.

I once had a class of fifth-graders write an essay on the question of a woman president. One boy student wrote that he didn't think a woman president was a good idea at all because "then we wouldn't have any freedom!" That statement is quintessentially American. Most little boys in America are disciplined primarily by their mothers, and that's not true in all cultures. So it's easy to see where this kid was coming from. The woman in his life was always telling him what he may not do. By extension of the metaphor of government as family, the notion that putting a woman in charge would reduce freedom seems rather logical.

Perhaps some of the hostility I felt from my women classmates had to do with their perception that I was an interloper into a domain which they ruled, even if somewhat clandestinely.

Even for progressive educators who don't operate according to "fixed stars" it's not possible to disconnect culture from learning. After all progressive educators view learning as an inherently social activity. Here's of curriculum materials for teaching math through culture.

Learning requires a fitting together of networks of similar propositions.

For those of you outside the USA, the changes which have occurred under Bush the son are probably hard to keep track of, the magnitude of the changes are hard even for us here to catalog. Nevertheless Bush's impact on schooling in America has been profound. The approach as been systematic enough in order to study them as a package and model in the sense that Mark uses.

My hunch is the model doesn't hold up very well. Because it's set up explicitly to counter the stream of progressive educational ideas in this country, the shift provides a ready made critique of that model. But the clash of ideologies, and the swing of the pendulums in American education oversimplifies what's really going on. Practically teachers always try their best and the old arguments most of the time seem irrelevant. I think it's best not to take "the models" of education as too hard and fast.

Internet search is too much fun for an easily distracted guy like me. I searched "Takeshi Umerhara Western liberalism." Samuel Huntington quoted him as saying:

"[The] complete failure of Marxism and the spectacular disintegration of the Soviet Union are only the precursors of a collapse of Western liberalism, the main current of modernity. Far from being an alternative to Marxism and the dominant ideology at the end of History, liberalism will been the next domino piece to fall."

What fascinated me with the search results were the number of links to right wing sites. The changes in the education in the USA are closely related to the Huntington view of the world--"The Clash of Civiliztions" where Americans aver the necessity to adhere to the "American Creed" and prayer in schools and public life; never mind, Umerhara's Japanese nationalism.

Many Americans are quick to tell people from other countries "I didn't vote for George Bush!" Mostly the responses seem to follow the line: So what. Do you think that lets you off the hook?"

Partly the impulse to talk about the voting has to do with Americans having a vague feeling they've been made the "enemy" by their own countrymen. The rightists so aligned with Huntington's views may miss the connection Huntington probably draws between Western liberalism and Western civilization. In any case, liberalism is seen as the enemy of Western civilization and so in turn liberals are the enemy. The battle against the enemy is a battle for "faith" understood both as Christian and American.

I've definitely been rambling. What I've been trying to piece together were thoughts about Linda's observation about so few Nobel laureates from Asian and African institutions. Inquisitiveness clearly has something to do with that. And I've been mulling over Ben's wise observation that it's really about empowerment.

I'm not sure I know what it's all about! I do think that reason can contribute to making something real in our societies, at the same time agreeing with Pascal: "The heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of."

As a boy raised to be a professing Christian, deciding not to be created a crisis. Working through that crisis since that time as a freshman in college, the problem of faith hasn't been easy to resolve. We are all somewhat unconscious of the processes by which we perceive the world. Yet to operate and negotiate through the world we must proceed with faith in our perceptions. Still I do not share the proposition held by so many American that the "clash of civilizations" is won by affirming the "American Creed" nor is it won on the battle field.

Models of what works seems like such a practical suggestion. But the idea of what constitutes a model isn't so easy. With a loosey-goosey definition of models there are quite a number that can be studied. OIC Opportunities Industrialization Centers is one that interests me so much because it fit well in an American context and yet has been able to be applied successfully in other countries. More generally I would look towards the OIC model drawing on the frame of`constructionism`_ and propositions of progressive education. But that way of framing is quite suspect among the rulers of American politics and how they frame what education really is.

edit: fixed link

You always land up sending me to interesting place, John. If I only had days that were about 72 hours long.

The OIC Opportunities Program is interesting and not totally dissimilar to the learn-by-doing programs we are looking at for Opok Farms and the community in Tak Province here in Thailand. However, (you knew that was coming right?) I think what I am getting at is much more basic than that. How do communities set themselves up for failure by clinging to repressive social norms?

(Man, that was pretty harsh and pretty blunt, but I think it can open discussion.)

Linda wrote:

How do communities set themselves up for failure by clinging to repressive social norms?

I like the question very much and do think it can open the discussion.

Popular hip hop artist Wyclef Jean collaborated with Kenny Rogers in a cover of "The Gambler."

You've got to know when to hold em and when to fold em.

I didn't take the cover as a joke or satire, rather that the dilemma of knowing when to hold to(or fight for)ones truth and when to let go is a human dilemma--as true in country music as hip hop.

Your question, Linda, may be basic, but it hardly has an easy answer, because, like the Kenny Rogers song, we all operate on hunches.

I was talking with a Ugandan friend, someone I know is proud of being a part of the Ganda tribe. Somewhere in the conversation he mentioned how it seems dead ancestors aren't really dead. Then he talked about applying for a marketing job in Southern Sudan. I was curious about what language he'd use in his work. The talk of language got into a pile of resentments, and he said something that interested me: "This generation can forgive, but our ancestors cannot."

The past asserts control over the present, but in the present we are able to limit the past; or as my friend pointed out we in the present are able to make choices those in the past cannot.

Lao Tse spoke:

The wheel's hub holds thirty spokes/ Utility depends on the hole through the hub./ The potter's clay forms a vessel/ It is the space within that serves./ A House is built with solid walls/ The nothingness of window and door alone renders it usable,/ That which exists may be transformed/ What is non-existent has boundless uses.

Mark Grimes said:

I would go so far as to say the quality of questions we ask in our lives determines the overall quality of life we live overall....

...To get answers to problems never solved before we must ask questions that have never been asked before.

I hesitate to jump in with such a learned goup, but what Mark said resonates so strongly I feel compelled to offer my thoughts. I daily intone to my children, "If something doesn't work, stop, back up, study the situation. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insane." It is through our ability to question information, challenge authority and reject opinions that we become able to accept facts, choose to conform and create our own realities rather then subscribing to mass programming.

To paraphrase Mark, better questions lead to better answers. "Educators"(here I mean parents, teachers, social, political and business leaders) work so hard to gather their knowledge, they can become too invested in THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE to remember that it was the ORIGINAL QUESTION that lead to the attaining of said knowledge. With so much invested, it is difficult to cultivate skepticism in their students/followers. Any attack on their knowledge requires energy to defend it and how much energy is then left to promote it? So instead of cultivating inquisitiveness, it is tolerated for as long as possible then extinguished.

I am no way implying this is a failing you share, Linda. Merely offering my thoughts as to why inquisitiveness is not cultivated, not just in Thailand, but America as well.

Inquisitiveness comes with confidence. There is a great deal of status associated with knowledge in Africa and associated loss of status through making oneself seem foolish, through lack of knowledge. Hence a fear of the consequences of questioning is deeply ingrained from childhood. The lack of status of children in Africa makes their comments about the world they live in more or less irrelevant and most questioning is relegated to the dustbin by adults, perhaps overly concerned about being "shown up" themselves. Having said that the abilities of Africa's children to be independent and act with knowledge of their environment, positively, helpfully and practically is major learning for the "cotton wool surrounded" children in UK/US society.

To me inquisitiveness is not a central theme, but merely a part of many societal aspects which are changemaking. In the UK only a few are inquisitive enough to question the contents of the tabloids and that is personality, not teaching imho.

What we can try to give in a drive for empowerment is self confidence, information on tap, forgiveness, positivity, intellectual and environmental stimulus, fun/play/leisure, vehicles for artistic expression and many more.

A "little knowledge" is a bad thing, as it destroys context, holistic thinking and sometimes causes divisions, as the person holding it strives to maintain their differential over others who lack this information. This is one of the main benefits of the internet, as no one has this power over anyone any more.

Thanks for commenting, Dawn. I am not learned - that's Mark, Linda and John! So please continue to contribute and share with me the knowledge imparted:)

Dawn, I am certainly not learned! More importantly you bring to this discussion a wealth of real knowledge from experience. In education circles people are more or less forced to come up with some answer to the question. "What's your educational philosophy." It's probably a good thing because it keeps us thinking about the connection between theory and practice, but in day to day activities mostly teachers, librarians, administrators, social workers, counselors, judges, and the many others who work directly with education and school issues on a daily basis just try to solve problems. That Mark's post about questions resonates so strongly demonstrates how thoughtful you are about how people learn and your practical experience provides a wealth of knowledge. Thanks for participating.

Linda once those 72 hour days kick in there are a few things I'd like to point to you might find interesting.

I like kids, especially the ones in my family. Mobs of them can be annoying and frustrating, joyful and inspiring too. But what engages me the most about thinking about kids is how much paying attention to their development has to tell us about being people. It's my curiosity that made me want to study child development and elementary education.

People are complicated, and society even more so. I am very impressed with science, but I think that when it comes to behavioral science and human understanding, science is not so mature as it is with sciences like physics. Consequently social science research often feels quite disappointing to me. On the other hand, I'm often frustrated with the notion that social science is just one opinion after another. I have great respect for careful study.

Chris Blattman has a draft paper up from his work in Northern Uganda, From Violence to Voting. His handling of data is impressive, which is significant. And his study connects to theory, so it doesn't exist in isolation from other careful study. That's important too. LOL but I'm not sure I think the paper is particularly important, my opinion of course. And my opinion is colored by a a somewhat prejudiced view of "the dismal science."

That prejudice notwithstanding the work you are doing on Buddhist economics seems very important for many reasons. One aspect of your study has to do with the cross-cultural nature of your work. This seems particularly important because, unlike many economists, you appear to place morality in the center of economics.

I don't really imagine that anyone is particularly interested in my religious views. I certainly am not interested in converting anyone to them! But since I frequently say, "I'm not religious" and then also point out that I was brought up a Christian and live in a place where most people are Christian, I find myself bringing up religion. It's certainly a subject that interests me. I'm not a scientific antithesis, but enjoy reading them. I am secular, and old enough to have read Harvey Cox's "The Secular City." I checked to see whether the book was still in print, it's not. More disturbing is nothing Cox has written still seems in print. It's a bit funny because he's a Baptist theologian of great repute, and The Secular City was a best seller. It makes me sad to think that religion in the public sphere has become something that exists only in niches.

I was very interested in Roger Scruton's review of Charles Griswold" Forgiveness: A philosophical exploration. Scruton notes that Griswold is the "leading authority on the moral philosophy of Adam Smith. Griswold's approach is secular, but I was quite interested because forgiveness is so central to Christianity. My ideas of Christianity are more or less in line with creation spirituality. I note that unlike Harvey Cox's books, Mathew Fox's books are still in print.

Recently an online friend, Phil Jones put his master's thesis online. For various reasons he isn't too happy about the work. That doesn't surprise me, because too often academic writing doesn't really work. But for a whole host of reasons I've already decided Phil is brilliant. I would love to have a discussion with him about his thesis, because I've got plenty of bones to pick about it. That probably won't happen.

Phil's work draws on the work of Robert Axelrod. Axelrod was unknown to me. Phil developed some computer models using game theory to explore the role of individual recognition as pertains to the subject of altruism. Axelrod had done some work with iterations of the prisoner's dilemma, a non-zero sum game. I'm not actually very hep on the idea of using models like this to form an evolutionary perspective. but I was intrigued that Axelrod introduced three constructs for that discussion: niceness, provokability and forgiveness.

It interested me to imagine forgiveness at the root in this context.

Buddhist come to their worldviews in a way quite distinct from Christians. So these paths must surely form some of the questions you are asking in your work.

Last night as I was musing, while writing--something I could probably benefit by interjecting a time lag into the process, and some editing--I thought of a phrase that Gregory Bateson used in discussing sex as a conservative mechanism. He talked about a "wrestling together (in real time) of related but never totally similar networks of propositions." I very much like that "wrestling together."

As people meet across boundaries in what seems a reunion of humankind, how often we must wrestle together. It's an old observation that the bitterest fighting is between people so similar, the American Civil War proffered ans an example.

Forgiveness doesn't play in the same way in Buddhist cultures as in Christian ones. Morality in general doesn't seem to garner much attention in economics. It's good, I think, that scholars are looking once again at Adam Smith's work. Perhaps moral philosophy may find ways into the cracks in economics, and your work has that as a rather explicit problem to be solved.

Forgiveness as Griswold note requires a dialog. And a dialog reminded me of Bateson's "wrestling together." It's probably really not a direction you want to take your work, but the practice of "wrestling together" views about forgiveness seems an interesting place to explore a joining of economic perspectives from different--but similar--moral perspectives.

I've been involved in volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring for more than 30 years, with my efforts focused on helping kids living in high poverty, inner-city neighborhoods, connect with adult tutors/mentors who help them expand their experience base, their aspirations, and build learning habits that would make them more likely to stay in school, and would give them an expanded adult network more likely to help them succeed in life.

In this process I have built my own learning habits, and thus, understand a bit more about this problem now than I did 30 years ago. I've created the Tutor/Mentor Connection to build on this. Here's some basic concepts

1. the community/environment in which kids live does effect learning. The number of kids living in segregated, high poverty neighborhoods of Chicago, LA and New York numbers more than 100,000 for each city. For many of these kids the most common mentor, tutor or role model for the first 8 years of their lives is a person who did not finish high school, a person who has spent time in jail, a person making a living in illegal business, or who is living in high poverty. Thus, the motivations and aspirations that these kids bring to school is different than kids who live in more diverse, more affluent neighborhoods.

Thus, the issues of kids in rural areas of high poverty, or the kids in Africa, Asia, or South American areas of high poverty, are also going to be differnet. We can't lump all learning in one conversation and create any uniform understanding. We need to segment the conversation based on the environment of the learner.

2. while we're talking about how to turn kids into learners, and how the internet might play a role, I focus on how to turn adults into learners, using the internet to play a role. No one can learn everything there is to know about poverty, and its different impact in different places, at least not in a short time. However, if we create libraries of information, and opportunities for people to learn, interact with each other, and keep these people involved for many years, they can build their experience.
3. we need to find ways to visualize this information. I'm not sure how many people have read this far, or who read all the long discussions on any forum. When people say a picture is worth a thousand words, I think of blueprints, maps and charts. I'm trying to use maps to show where poverty is most concentrated, and charts to show the range of learning and mentoring and social support that needs to surround kids in every poverty neighborhood, for many years, if the end-goal is that kids born today are holding jobs when they in their 20's.

Here's an example of a chart that illustrates age appropriate supports needed from elementary school through college: http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servl et/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=118 0990425722_828414813_53213&p artName=actualhtmltext

Here's a link to homework help resources that any kid in the world could access to enhance their own learning: http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servl et/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=118 3749908750_1432677477_9694&p artName=htmltext

Here's a link to the knowledge library that the T/MC maintains to support the efforts of adults who are learning more about this problem, and more about ways they can be part of the solution: http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servl et/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=118 0119458133_1566509717_34175& partName=htmltext

All of this information can be found at http://www.tutormentorconnection .org along with maps of Chicago showing where poverty is most concentrated, and a database of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, which are places adults can become personally involved in mentoring kids to learn to use this knowledge.

4. that's the final lesson. Unless we connect personally with an issue, we don't build the bonds between us and the people we want to help. These bonds motivate us to give more time, talent, and money, to help these kids, than we might if we are just responding to some fund raising appeal. In a long-term tutor/mentor program, a volunteer may stay involved for 2-4 years of active duty, and 5-15 years or more via the Internet. In the chart I illustrated above, a volunteer who connects with a youth in first grade could still be part of the support system for that youth 20 years later, if the intermediary structure is in place to nurture the continued involvement of the adult, and the youth.

Thus, as we talk about education in the US, or Africa, or another place, we need to help groups form that connect youth and adults, connect them to on-line knowledge, and help them stay connected for many, many years.

The links on the T/MC site are interactive. Anyone can join the site and submit information about a tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region that we don't know about. We've created a section for Los Angeles, and can do that for other cities to. However, all of this does not need to be hosted on the T/MC site. Other groups can duplicate this process, and build their own library, focused on Keyna, or London, or Sao Paulo. Until someone does that there will just be a bunch of fragmented conversations, but no real strategy to reach a growing number of kids, and connect them in a growing number of places where learning is encouraged, and adults mentor the process.

John Powers said:

I don't really imagine that anyone is particularly interested in my religious views. I certainly am not interested in converting anyone to them!

I am so excited that you bring up this point, John! Our religious beliefs so influence the conclusions we draw, the materials we read, the reference tools we give credibility to, the judgements we make, and on and on ad nauseum! I made a startling revelation while shopping for a baby gift for my great-great niece (and no I am NOT as old as I sound!). I could not find anything that said, "Daddy's Girl". I was commenting on this to my seven year old daughter, and her conclusion was that "Daddies are not around as much as Mommies". This led me down the path of the rise of "my baby's daddy" vs. "my husband", the number of unwed mothers and the judgement that this is not a good thing, not for economic reasons, but beause it is contrary to God's Law. What does all this have to do with learning? Maybe nothing, but I believe the influence of spirituality on our thought process is an often neglected issue.

I do feel it is pertinent to state one's religous beliefs in the context of shedding light on one's accepted paradigms. When we better understand where someone is coming from, we can better help them reach where they are going to.

"--I thought of a phrase that Gregory Bateson used in discussing sex as a conservative mechanism. He talked about a "wrestling together (in real time) of related but never totally similar networks of propositions." I very much like that "wrestling together."

As people meet across boundaries in what seems a reunion of humankind, how often we must wrestle together. It's an old observation that the bitterest fighting is between people so similar,..."

To this I have to say an excited, "Yes! Exactly!!" The view from the mirror that someone else is holding up for us is so much more illuminating the static view from the one on the wall.

I haven't given up on this conversation. In fact it has been the center of my thoughts this week as I have been working on a 2 day work shop to try to help the students in my program learn to think "strategically". We will be spending all day Sat and Sunday playing games that will hopefully teach them some problem solving strategies that can be applied outside of games.

I was talking last evening with my Thai teacher about having mentors for the students who are outside the culture, where people might feel more free breaking "rules" and she thought about it for a while (like through our entire 2 hour class and at the end, before she left, she said she was thinking that that might be the trick for Thai students.

Dan made a point that I would like to put a slightly different turn on. I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school. One of the first investments my family made though was a set of encyclopedias. As I was growing up, when I would ask a question, my mother would make my questions valuable. We would go and find the answer (I think maybe even when she KNEW the answer) so that I learned how to find information. And she would ask me questions to help me refine my inquiry. She wasn't an educated woman (formally) but she was wise and I think mostly, she wanted the best for me. The people helping these children don't have to have long CVs with formal education. They just have to want to help someone grow. Maybe, in fact, it isnot the education or the method so much as the concern that makes it all work.

OK...off to a day of Towers of Hanoi, Clue, Mastermind, Sudoku and thinking out of the box.

PS - a reminder for myself to come back to Dawn's point about how religion fits in because I am totally convinced now tat its power is completely underestimated. Buddhists don't approach much of anything from the same direction as Christians and the differences in perspective provide unique challenges for inter-cultural dialog.

If I had anything to do with handing out genius grants, I'd nominate Dan for one! Of course I'd also be quick to point out that genius is in large measure hard work. The Tutor Mentor Connection has such a rich history and is particularly important as a leader in using information and communications tools. The openness of the network is also very significant, if for no other reason by paying attention people won't have to always reinvent the wheel.

Dan makes so many good points, but I want to pick up on this one:

Unless we connect personally with an issue, we don't build the bonds between us and the people we want to help.

Something that is so apparent being around little children is how important affect is for learning. It's simply not possible to separate out the "intellect" from "emotions" in thinking about structuring learning situations for children. I guess as we grow up such separation seems rather natural. I suppose in talking about affective issue for a college class, competition might be an acceptable topic; almost anything else seems would receive derision.

I do look forward to Linda getting back to Dawn's point about religion. It's great that Linda has had experience structuring learning situations for such a range of age groups. And I like very much that this conversation isn't just about "schooling" rather about "learning." We want to know how we can all learn as lifelong learners so schooling or educational theory are directions we can look for useful ideas, but not the only direction.

What I had in mind in brining up religion was cultural pluralism. Here's some more of my personal story.

We moved to Greenville South Carolina in 1964. I attended public school for forth grade while my younger brother and older sister attended an Episcopal school. I attended the Episcopal school from 5th to 8th grade. So, imagine the South in the 1960's. By going to that school I learned something about class--in an economic sense.

My father was an industrial chemist. The big plant, the reason for our move, was a nylon plant. I think at it's height employing about 1100 people. I've never been studious enough to be a Marxist. But when I say awareness of class, I really do mean it in a rather Marxist way. My classmates at the Episcopal school were mostly children of the bourgeoisie and to a certain extent petit bourgeoisie. My father at the managerial ranks, certainly not an owner, was a bit of an anomaly in the status ranking of the Southern city where we lived.

Schools were segregated by race. The year before we moved the public library had been closed rather than open it's doors to black people. Partly because my younger brother, the last of us five kids entered school, and I guess partly so my parents would have enough money for me to go to the Episcopal school, my mother began a career as a teacher. In the summer of 1964 she was an instructor in the nascent Headstart, so one of the first white teachers to teach black students since the 1890's. Her teaching career in the South was highly involved with school desegregation.

In 1968 we moved to the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina and I attended public school. Unlike Greenville, Charlotte had never had segregated schools. It was home to two black colleges. But as the city's population had grown the suburban development grew in such a way to create white only schools. An enormously contentious court ruling lead to the merging of the Charlotte and Mecklenburg County schools and a desegregation plan which involved school busing. Wow, was it ever contentious! Somehow Greenville which had a very racist past adapted to school desegregation more easily than one of the most progressive southern cities did.

Anyway, these experiences growing up really got me interested in cultural pluralism at a young age. Something else I'll mention is that in 10th grade in high school in Charlotte my best course was Bible. They got away with it by a consortium of churches paying the salary of the Bible teacher.

In 11th grade we moved to Pittsburgh. I love Pittsburgh for among many other reason that it's a wonderfully ethnic city. Once I went to the house of a schoolmate. Her father met me at the door and reached out his hand to shake mine. I saw his numbered tattoo above his wrist and was dumbstruck. There's a little more to the story. I was in 11th grade but had to take World Cultures which was normally a 10th grade social studies class. I sat next to Rici for a film about the gas chambers. Meanwhile in 10th grade I'd become a Jesus Freak--remember those? So at my new high school in Pittsburgh I carried a Bible everyday to every class. Rici at the movie almost climbed into my lap. I was way too shy to want that, but her distress was palpable. I did not know about her father and it was a shock. His business by the way was making Catholic school uniforms in Pittsburgh.

All this personal stuff is probably awfully boring and it doesn't get around to Dan's important point about making bonds with those we're trying to help, which is a critical point.

An education major has about the least prestige in American colleges of any discipline, elementary education perhaps even more so because it doesn't entail the subject major that high school licenses require. But part of what made the study very exciting to me was to connect with a body of thinking about education from an American perspective.

I've mentioned progressive education as a short of shorthand. John Dewey is known in education circles, but much less so by the wider public. What seems important is not so much educational methods, but the philosophical foundations about society, especially plural societies. People, both conservative and liberal would probably remark that progressive education is "So twentieth century!" Many believe that the movement was all over by the 1950's. But there are so many ways that so much of the way we think now is imbued with a philosophical perspective hammered out by twentieth century progressives.

When I think of my top ten list of American educators, those who in my mind represent a set of ideas about education which I think are pretty good, I realize there isn't an entirely consistent viewpoint. For example Mary McLeod Bethune would be on my list. Bethune died in 1955, the year I was born. But looking at photographs of her and knowing something of her accomplishments, she seems very recognizable to me. My life has been blessed by courageous women such as her. Bethune was religious and a teetotaler. She was known to castigate drunken black people she encountered. Still, her ideas about education seem to connect with progressive education.

So in my mind I have a body of work and careful thinking which is important to me. I do not imagine this secularism as antithetical to religion. But it does stand in sharp contrast to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is such a fraught term, you can see that by the neutrality discussion of the term at Wikipedia. But in ordinary conversation secularism is often contrasted to fundamentalism. Pope Benedict XVI surely wouldn't don the label, however is an outspoken critic of secularism. I can't think of a good term to name what I'm pointing to, perhaps anti-secularist will do. In any case, this is an important movement in American education today. It has ramifications for all aspects of society and the ways we think about education.

Perhaps the defining characteristic of modern society is social change. There are a range of philosophical positions deploring change and an insistence on authority.

I mentioned before the popularity of Takeshi Umerhara prediction that Western liberalism is the next shoe to drop among rightwing sites like Free Republic. What I find fascinating is how the defense of the "West" is central to the Freepers' ideas, but by embracing the "faith" in the shape of an "American Creed" liberalism is made the enemy of the West! Liberalism is not the same as what I'm calling "progressive education." It's hard to find the right words when so many of the words like liberal, secular and fundamentalist have become so muddled.

What I find so very hard to express--note the length of this missive--is how the views against social change have coalesced around a return to "faith." Clearly many faithful Christians have embraced this movement, but the movement is not explicitly Christian faith, but adopted by those (fundamentalist) who wish to assert authority. Schooling is one of the central battle grounds of this culture war.

Harvey Cox's book "The Secular City" sold over a million copies. Surely the overwhelming majority of readers were Christians. The short version of the thesis is the church is primarily people of faith and what they do rather than an institution. In some ways Cox's points were similar to Liberation Theology in Roman Catholicism. Pope Benedict XVI reacted to suppress this movement in the 1980's. The fact that Harvey Cox's book, all of his books, are out of print reflects a real change in thinking. In the sixties there was an acceptance by Christians that secular movements in society, like ending legal racial segregation, where not at odds with their Christian faith. In fact Christians celebrated such secular advances as a fruit of their faith.

I am not religious and many of the people whose philosophical thinking I admire were not either. However this body of thought was not anti-religious, indeed tolerance is rather central to the thinking and space made for the religious. Consequently the very religious Mary McLeod Bethune saw no contradiction between her progressive education and religion. Whereas today many Christians feel they must act against secularism.

I see this very modern tension in Africa today as well.

I'm not religious, and I'm not anti-religion. There's a space to talk about ideas about education, freedoms, and social change without fighting religious battles. But surely that does not mean these discussions can proceed without talking about religion, it's simply too relevant to avoid it. Like politics and race, religion is a sensitive subject. With sensitive subjects insult, it seems to me, is inevitable even without intentions to be insulting. I don't know how exactly to frame the ground rules, but I believe people of goodwill can manage to be thoughtful and kind in such discussions.

I will stop. Sorry for being so prolix. I thank anyone whose made it through my rambling.

Just an aside, really. My African colleagues treasured the books given to their children that they wished to keep them safe (under lock and key) and they tell me that this is common practice. The same people treasure learning above almost everything else.

We are seeing "reverence" for things, which we call "run of the mill", which is perhaps not unexpected. However, with reverence comes lack of desire/passion. Revering books takes them out of routine, which is required to foster learning. In the same household these books are only read on special "supervised" occasions.

In Kaduna, electricity is in short supply, even where there are plugs. Yet the local people consider it a "gift", not a right. One shouldn't complain, lest it go away. Imho, hence, their service has become steadily worse over the last ten years, not better. Electricity is also an important determiner of learning, as during evenings, the light is too poor to read properly.

How can we inspire some passion for improved standards of living within the populace, who are fully aware of their situation, in comparison to the rest of the world?

Ben, I see a similar thing here. I discovered it quite by accident. I was teaching in a government elementary school. The children each had a work book that we would work in each class after they had learned their vocabulary and learned their sentence structure for the day. However, the class was 40-50 students and doing conversation was pretty close to impossible and getting the students to interact more of a challenge than I was able to tackle most days. The children thought it was much more fun to color the workbooks than learn the lesson. I tried not distributing the books until I was ready for them but the next class period, the Thai teacher had had the students distribute the workbooks before I arrived. They were all busy coloring the workbooks and not paying attention and so I suggested that they all stand up and put their books on the seat of the chair and then sit down (on the book). Really BAD idea. All of the kids were then not paying attention and squiggling around to get the books on their laps where then would then "wai" their books. It was considered irreverent to sit on a book so they had to pay respect to the books.....

I can't convince even teachers that wai-ing books and wearing uniforms is not respecting education as much as reading, doing homework, coming to class (on time), asking questions or saying they don't understand something. That is certainly described by you

We are seeing "reverence" for things, which we call "run of the mill", which is perhaps not unexpected. However, with reverence comes lack of desire/passion. Revering books takes them out of routine, which is required to foster learning. In the same household these books are only read on special "supervised" occasions.

I think the internet has helped this "questioning" issue a great deal, as you can see diverse views on every subject under the sun. In Nigeria we are trying to sponsor an "Eyes on Kaduna" web-site (is that Simpsons?), which will track what the government are doing and how it meets their manifesto. By marketing the site in cyber-cafés (and making it very low graphics) one might start to get some following and public feedback. In Nigeria, people are very interested in politics, which makes them inquisitive in this area. My hope is actually that one of the government departments will actually partly financially support the "independent" site, which will be run by an ex-government statistician.

I write this simply to show how internet can develop learning amongst adults in a very positive way.

On the subject of religion, I can't help but think that both main religions in Nigeria are complicit in holding back the development of learning, especially for women. Obsession with hierarchy, the epistles of St Paul and the "Obey" part of "love, honour and obey" means that it takes a rare woman to stand against the oppression. And strangely it is these women who I think will unlock the future potential of Africa, just as similar women have for us historically.

Having said that, encouraging men to participate in women's empowerment programmes is the first step...

Hi all, A really interesting discussion. I'm a student in New Zealand and have been involved in a program where we set a one-one mentoring system between a university student and a 'gifted' student from one of two local primary schools (the students are selected by their teachers and specify an interest which we attempt to closely match with the university strudent).

A weekly, hour long one-one session is then taken from the school day for the mentor to spend with the child to try and inspire, guide or just answer some of the questions. It's not a scheme that can provide for all students, nor one that is suitable for all environments, with requirements of being able to take the student out of class and have the place to work with them. However the feedback from all involved is very strong.

Whilst this doesn't necessarily answer the more serious questions raised by Linda; in terms fo promoting education more directly relevant to the real world, it can help encourage some children to ask searching questions. It also initiates university students in community service and the eductation of others.

Do you think that connections between primary schools and universities could be successful in other countries such as Thailand? I sit enough to only help those 'selected'?

We have been on another thread trying to look at ways to single out gifted and talented children (from rural villages), as there are not very many such programmes in Africa. I also think that the typical student is similarly subjugated in the few universities that exist, so there may not be direct equivalents in student behaviour patterns..

The other issue of initiating students into community service is something that is done, as a one-year activity in Nigeria. It is quite a successful programme, from what I can gather.

To me the idea is certainly worth investigating - do you have any references on the work? Also are there any written objectives? What course were you doing, or was it offered to a lot of students across all subjects?