On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 21:58:50 +0100, Timothy Collinson
<timothy.collinson@port.ac.uk> wrote:

>Oooh, I like these as variations and have snipped for future use (but
>hoping you'll do it as a 'proper' article in FT so I can find it more
>easily later!)

"Proper" articles on the topics that I've posted for worldbuilding/
culturebuilding would require more research than I have the time and
inclination for; moreover, I don't really see how they would impact a
game beyond "local color", and I'd thus argue that an in-depth treatment
wouldn't be appropriate.

>Couple of thoughts spring to mind:

>How about the Asimovian 'teacher' model - also used to great comic effect
>in HitchHiker's Guide ("don't forget, press the *other* button...") - in
>which the pupil is taught by a computer,  which may be set to be
>personalized for the pupil and their ability.  Presumably the software can
>then offer - after appropriate tests which could be written, oral or
>experential in holographs etc - certification.  Obviously this would need
>to be higher tech levels than 7 or 8.

I see this as illustrating the difference between "education" and
"training" - I don't see a way to mechanize examining for
*understanding*, as opposed to mechanistic performance of operations.
This might have been common in the Ziru Sirka prior to the Terran
conquest, but I don't see it as a real model for education.

>(In fact, it occurs to me that I learned to type this way using an
>institution wide software - was it Accutype? - at university where I never
>interacted with any teacher, went through the lessons and was made to take
>additional lessons in areas I was weak, and had a printed certificate at
>the end of it - I believe I still have it!  It said something like 'over
>10,000 key depressions per hour at 99% accuracy')  (no wonder I can type a
>lot of rubbish very quickly!)

This is a perfect illustration of what I mean above - sure, you can be
99% accurate in depressing keys on a keyboard, but could that program
detect whether or not you were using the 'correct' fingers on the
'correct' keys, or did it merely detect that the 'correct' key was
depressed when it was expected?

>And the 'child's play' model in which youngsters learn by playing and
>perhaps role-playing together.  Perhaps it appears unsupervised by in fact
>is being monitored (at a distance) by proctors who will judge whether a
>child has progressed sufficiently to join the next higher level of
>society.  I think I read a longish short story along these lines recently -
>I'll see if I can find it.  But I seem to recall the protagonists were near
>adults and started out at least in a swamp where they hounded a poor girl
>to (death?) and lived in 'fake' environments of some sort.  [After a quick
>look I can't find this, but it might have been electronic rather than in
>print so I might never find it again.]

This was outside the scope of my posting, which was intended to focus on
postsecondary (college) education. What you've described is a component
of the Montessori and Sudbury models, but both of those are pretty much
limited to primary education.

>[But in looking for that, I found this...]
>Philip K. Dick's short story 'The Exit Door Leads In' which has a
>fascinating form of college and testing!

... which you've not described. Correct the omission.


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