INTERVIEW:
Question 1
Can you tell us how computers will help children to learn? You say that
computers are not used in the right way in schools. Why?
Answer
Schools are a very conservative institution. The easiest thing for a school to do is to
use the new technology perhaps to improve, but to continue and to strengthen its old ways
of doing. Everybody tries to do this. We have to reconsider the whole structure of school.
For example, the idea of dividing children up into classes: first class, second class,
third class. It’s ridiculous. Nowhere else in life do we divide people up according
to age. We do it in school because that was the only way we were able to hand out
knowledge, give it a little bit at a time. You’d get a little bit when you’re
eight, a little bit when you’re nine. Nowadays, people get knowledge at all ages when
they need it, and so the idea of having classes is ridiculous. So we must rethink school.
Also what we teach in school is knowledge left over from the 19th century. Ninety percent
of what we teach in school should not be taught. It’s no longer relevant.
Question 2
So which are the fields that you consider to be the most important for children?
Answer
The most important is how to be a good learner, how to be an independent learner. Because
it’s in the nature of school that we teach children not to learn themselves but to be
taught by a teacher. I think the most important thing to teach children is to be
independent learners in charge of their own learning. For the subject matters, I think the
one that needs the most reform is mathematics, not because it’s the most important
but because it does the most harm. I think the way we teach mathematics gives people
useless knowledge but does much psychological damage, because many people believe they are
stupid, they are limited, they can’t do this. So I think it should all be thrown out,
and we should rethink what we want to teach children.
Question 3
So perhaps mathematics should be taught in a more practical way ?
Answer
We should teach different mathematics. The mathematics that we teach in schools is totally
useless. Mathematics is a way of active thinking. So it’s no good to just change the
way you teach the same stuff. We need to create a new context. For example, I think
children can learn to do marvellous projects with computers. They can build robots, they
can make computer art. They can create multimedia shows, make their own video games. In
doing that they need important mathematics. Mathematics that used to be impossible to
teach but now children can learn it, and that’s the mathematics they should learn.
But that only makes sense by changing the whole structure of what we think children should
be doing as they grow up.
Question 4
What do you think a computer can give to a child that a book doesn’t give him?
Answer
We don’t think of the computer giving something to a kid. To make an analogy, if you
want to learn music, it’s good to play an instrument. What does a piano give to
somebody that a book cannot give him? The answer is the same. The piano allows you to do
something with the music, to make it your own, to express yourself with it. In the book
you can read about music, but it’s not the same thing. With mathematical knowledge,
the computer is like the piano. It enables you to play the knowledge; the book can only
give it to you.
Question 5
Some years ago you invented LOGO, a computer program for elementary school children. Can
you explain what it is?
Answer
LOGO was motivated by the idea of putting the children in charge of the computer, because
when I look and see how computers are used, the computer is in charge of the child. The
computer tells the child what to do. It asks a question, and tells you "right"
or "wrong". That’s not the way to do it. The way to do it is to put the
child in control of the computer. And LOGO is a tool for allowing children to use the
computer to do whatever they want with the tool, to make music with it, to make art with
it, to make games, historical research. It’s a way of giving children, and grown ups
as well, control of the computer.
Question 6
Are you studying new, advanced programs for children after LOGO?
Answer
It’s not really after LOGO, because LOGO has grown as the computers have become more
powerful and as we know how to do more things with the computer that are interesting for
children. It’s not a fixed system, it’s more like a philosophy, a way of
thinking about putting the child in control. So modern forms of LOGO look very, very
different from the older forms. Unfortunately, I think in Italy it’s only the older
forms that are well known.
Question 7
Do you think that Italy is really behind in this new study?
Answer
I think the whole world is late. In the United States we have more computers in the
schools and we have more bad use of computers in the schools. I should add, I think there
are very exciting things being done in the United States. But I think the average use of
the computer in the United States is going downwards not upwards, because with fancier
computers people can get children to do very superficial things very easily. And so I
think that the effect of the computer is not being used very well.
Question 8
You also said that kids should have the possibility to build new worlds and to make them
work with the computer. Why?
Answer
A little example that’s easy to describe is a project that we’ve done with a lot
of kids where the children make their own video games. Now, why is this important?
It’s not important to make a video game, but for children the video game is part of
the culture they live in. They think this is important and it is important in their lives.
So, a first change that comes about when the one can make a video game of one’s own
is that the children change from being consumers to being producers. And this is a first
change in approach and mentality. I think that what’s wrong with television, with the
media, with school even, is that children are given knowledge, they don’t make it.
They consume, they don’t produce. So, the fact that you can turn it around, the child
can now really make a video game - and a really good one - just in itself is an important
change. But in making this video game, really important areas of knowledge are brought
into play, and so the child is highly motivated to learn. To learn what?
First of all, programming. The child really learns to program the computer to make the
game. We have eight and nine-year old children learning, programming at a level that
usually you’d only expect from quite advanced secondary school students or even
university students. Then, in making this game they have to do a lot of other things. One
of my favourite examples is how a child might think about jumping. You might make a game.
You want this little figure to run along, and then jump over an obstacle. What’s a
jump? If you just jump yourself, you don’t have to think about what’s a jump.
But if you want to make the computer do it, you might have to think, Well, what’s a
jump. You go up and across and down like that. That doesn’t look like a very good
jump. What is a good jump? Is it more like that? What does that exactly mean, that shape?
So, the child’s coming into the mathematics of how to think about the shape of a
jump, of a path, of what a mathematician would call a trajectory. Then from that into the
physics of how jumping works in relation to gravity. So that child is getting into what
seems to be very advanced knowledge of mathematics, physics, and lots of other stuff in
programming. And the fact that the child is trying to make this game work, gives a
different kind of learning situation, a different motivation. There’s the chance to
explore. You try something, you see it doesn’t quite work, so you try something else.
And it’s a different way of learning from sitting in a class and the teacher says
this, this, and this, and you write it down and memorise it. It’s a much more
effective way of learning. And what applies here to mathematics and physics and science
and programming, also applies to other sorts of knowledge.
Question 9
So you are for a real revolution of the present school system?
Answer
I’d like to make a correction. It’s not that I’m for it, it’s going to
come, because computers are there. The people who are debating about whether we should
really have a revolution in school are wasting their time. They say it’s too
expensive to make big changes now, but really they’re wasting money, because
everything they’re spending at the moment is going to be thrown away, because in 10
or 20 years time nothing even vaguely like school as we know it will still exist.
Computers will be everywhere and the children will have them. They will learn different
ways. So our choice is not to be for or against it. Our choice is whether we are ready to
accept that this is already happening and is going to happen. Will we make the effort now
to make it happen in an orderly, planned way, or will we wait until it forces itself upon
us? That’s the realm of the choice, so I’m not for anything, except recognising
the way we’re going and being sensible about preparing for it.
Question 10
For this reason in some countries people won’t use computers. There will be a gap
between countries that will use technology as you said and poor countries that won’t
use technology. This will make a real difference.
Answer
Unfortunately, this will be true. I don’t think it’s a question of poor or rich.
I think that often the richest countries are the most conservative about making big
changes. I’ve spent a lot of time in so-called developing countries. I’ve found
that when you go into a developing country people are much more open to new ideas. In the
developed country they think they know everything. So they’re not so ready for
change. In countries that are developing the very fact that you say I’m a developing
country means you recognise you need to change and you try to do something new. So,
it’s not so simple that it’s the advanced, rich countries versus the poor,
developing countries. The ones who do not take up the challenge of reworking their
educational system to fit the world of the future will lag behind. Is it a question of
cost? I don’t think so. I really think that it’s a question of priorities, of
political will, of deciding are we going to do it? In Italy you could give every child a
computer, and you’d only increase the cost of education by five percent, maybe. Even
in the poor countries you can bring computers, and in fact I do a lot of work and am part
of a new foundation called "To Be One" that’s trying very actively to
introduce computers and pilot projects in the countries where there are the fewest
computers. We want to bring them there to let children have access to them.
Question 11
You talked about video games, but some people are a little afraid about video games,
because they say they can be dangerous, as they say that television can be dangerous. Do
you agree with this?
Answer
Of course, everything can be dangerous. You can get books with some very dangerous stuff
in them; pornography, fascist propaganda, all sorts of bad stuff can be printed and nobody
says that we shouldn’t have books. Cars are dangerous. Many children are killed by
automobiles. We don’t say: let’s not have automobiles. We say: let’s think
about how to use them, and let’s be careful with them. I think the same thing is true
with computers, games, whatever. With video games, particularly, I really think a lot of
the content of the popular video games is very bad. I don’t like all the violence,
but what I think is more serious is that the video game is rather more like school, that
is, the child is fairly passive. The game sets the agenda for what you have to do. I think
making your own video game is a very positive thing, and turns it round so the child can
get the benefit of making the game, so that the desire to play the game becomes a
motivation for something really very positive and a new, deeper kind of learning for the
children.
Question 12
In Italy some people talk about making a rule to defend kids from the risk of
technologies, because young kids can see things on the Internet which are really not very
good for them. What do you think about this?
Answer
First of all people are wasting their time because it won’t work. I think is the real
solution is to be more trusting with children. We need to discuss these things with our
children. If we see that our children can’t talk to us about what they’re
looking at, there’s something wrong with our relationship with our children.
It’s more important for families to think about why is there a problem, why their
children want to do things like that, than to think about a technological solution. The
solution is in the nature of the family and in relationships. I know many children -my own
grandchildren spend a lot of time with computers - I don’t think they are doing
anything wrong. Occasionally, they stumble onto something that’s not good and they
will talk about it. They’ll say: we saw this funny thing. No harm is done. I think,
though, when some parents don’t know what their children are doing, when the children
don’t trust the parents, or even when the children think that if the parents say,
Don’t do that, that’s a good thing to do. Well, immediately there’s a
problem. If that’s your relationship with your children, you’ve got a serious
problem, and you should try to fix it. And of course those children go and want to peep at
things and don’t tell their parents what they’ve been looking at and things go
from bad to worse. In those cases the technology aggravates a problem that was already
there. It doesn’t create the problem. But I think it contains the possibility of
solution.
I think that working with children, with the computer, gives parents and children an
opportunity to develop more collaborative projects, learning together, sharing something,
something very rich, where children are in fact very good at learning this and can teach
the parents. I think that we’ve got, through this technology, much more opportunity
to improve the lives of children and the relationship between children and parents than
the danger of the harm that might be. But parents have to understand that they need to
spend time, they have to learn to use the computer, and they have to be ready to have a
more open mind about what children should learn and how learning should work. All that
would be a very good thing. I believe it’s beginning to happen. I don’t think
all parents will follow this course, some are too lazy, some are too prejudiced. I think
they will have increasing problems with their children, but don’t blame the computer.
The computer is only making visible a problem that was already there in the attitudes of
the parents.
Question 13
What kind of skills will be necessary for teachers in the future?
Answer
Well, I think that in the past the teacher has been put in the position of handing out
knowledge, of being a sort of human encyclopaedia. This doesn’t have to be done by a
human being, it can be done by information processors. The teacher has also been put in
the position of being a policeman, of having to discipline the children, force them to
learn what they don’t want to learn. I think that also disappears because we can make
learning so much more interesting for children. Some of the old functions of the teacher
disappear. Instead, the teacher should be an understanding person who is an advisor, and
above all a learner. Maybe the strangest thing about school is that we all say that
children should learn to learn. But if you want to learn something, the best way to learn
it is to see some expert at it doing it. Do the children see the teachers learning? Never.
Because the teachers aren’t learning, they’re teaching. So I think the most
important thing a teacher could do is to be learning new things with the kids and setting
a good example of learning.
It’s interesting that in all the languages that I’ve heard of, there are
words for the art of being a good teacher, like pedagogy or theory of instruction, and
fancy language. What is the word for the art of being a good learner? I don’t think
there’s a word in Italian or in English or in French or in Russian. Why is this?
It’s because up to now we think of the teacher as the active person. The learner only
has to do what the teacher says. We need to turn that around. We need to have experts at
learning, and that’s the most important skill of a teacher. It’s the most
important skill for the child too, because this child is going into a world where
knowledge is changing so fast that most people will be doing jobs that weren’t even
invented when the children were born. So it’s no good teaching children when
they’re young what they’re going to need for the rest of their lives, except one
thing: how to learn new things when you need them. Schools are bad places for teaching,
bad places for children to learn, because they are bad places for teachers to learn.
Question 14
With new technologies and with the Internet there is a lot of information. How can you
help children to select information and to find the right things?
Answer
I think there are two aspects to what the computer can give children. Unless you emphasise
both of them, it’s going to be superficial. When I spoke about the video game, I
spoke about the child constructing something with the computers. The computer was like the
clay out of which you might build a sculpture. It’s material for constructing, for
making things. I think that’s the core of what it can offer. However, if you are
going to make these things, you need access to knowledge and information. But if the
information you’re looking for is to serve a purpose, a real need, you don’t get
swamped in it. You go and look for the information you need, you grab it, and you use it.
Fortunately, the computer can offer children ways of getting at information that they need
in order to carry out important, deep, difficult projects. But there is no such things as
having too much information if you are looking for information for specific purposes. Of
course, there’s such a thing as "too much information" if you’re just
sort of swimming in the sea of information. I think the people who have this image of the
Internet that there’s just all that stuff out there, and you go and grab here and
there and get so much information is totally wrong. It’s even worse than the old
attitude of really spoon feeding children with the information that’s in the
curriculum. Information is only important when you do something with it. This idea of the
computer as an information machine is, I think, a very superficial and dangerous idea.
It’s not primarily an information machine. It’s that also, but most of all
it’s a machine for carrying out projects. It’s a tool for doing things and being
more effective, being able to do more complex things than you could do before.
Question 15
But if for instance a child must find something specific, on the Internet he can find it.
But sometimes it’s easier to find it in a book.
Answer
I don’t think that’s true. I find that if I need to know something, 99 times out
of 100 I can get it from the Internet much faster than I could get it from books. I
don’t which books you are looking at. You must go to a library to get the book.
Nevertheless, we’re just at the beginning of using data bases and digital knowledge
as a source of usable information. We need to do a lot of work to make the search process
more effective.
One of the research projects that we’re doing at MIT has the name Constructopedia.
This is the same knowledge as you might find in an encyclopaedia, except it’s
indexed. You can get at it by its uses rather than by the other aspects. It’s takes
on an aspect of games. We have children making a game where I talked about jumping as an
example. If you go to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, say, or any other encyclopaedia and
you look up "jump", you will find first of all you might find a history of the
Olympic Games, then you might find something about how certain animals jump. You will not
find very easily the information you need in order to construct a jump. Now, in the
Constructopedia, there would be the same information but it would be ordered so that
you’d first of all be able to get most easily at the information about how to use
jumping, say, in a game, or how to measure the jumping of an animal, or your own jumping.
It's a lot of work, we are just beginning and a lot of other people will do this. So I
think that with time the access to added information through digital media will become
easier. We must not judge the value of this by what you can do in the very early stage we
are in now.
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