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Author: [http://maxwelldemon.com Edmund Harriss], aka [[User:Gelada|Gelada]]<br>
Author: [http://maxwelldemon.com Edmund Harriss], aka [[User:Gelada|Gelada]]<br>
Body of article: about 510 words.<br>
Body of article: about 490 words.<br>
Discussion page for this essay: [[Talk:TheFWD_Gelada_-_Future_Education]]
Discussion page for this essay: [[Talk:TheFWD_Gelada_-_Future_Education]]<br>
Previous drafts: [[TheFWD_Gelada_-_Future_Education_drafts]]


=== Education and the "Harry Potter Letter" ===
=== Education and the "Harry Potter Letter" ===


Some people start to learn for themselves and once started they never stop. With each discovery their excitement with the world grows. Can we get more people to do this? Can we catch those who have started and take them further faster?
It is not hard to get kids playing football. You leave them somewhere with a ball. At the weekend you take them to see the game. Imagine if we could do the same with mathematics!


The start is simple. Get things in front of kids, when they show interest reel them in. Not all children will get excited about everything, but make sure they see the bits that you can get excited about. Do not be afraid to challenge.
We can. I have [http://maxwelldemon.com/2009/04/25/building-mathematics-sculpture-system-5/ built mathematical sculptures] with people in their own time, happily volunteered. I have taken [http://maxwelldemon.com/2010/03/16/building-mathematics-the-maker-faire-in-pictures/ mathematics to festivals] and seen parents drag their children away to give time to the other exhibits. It is possible to get kids to play spontaneously with mathematics and to give them ideas from the deep reaches of the subject. I use my research in geometry and tilings. Just leave children with wooden Penrose tiles and they will start to play. They will then ask questions, and find answers. Along with other games with mirrors, and toys like http://www.zometool.com/ zometool] and [http://www.polydron.co.uk/ polydron] this can lead to topics like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory group theory], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_dimension four dimensional space] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorems]. In fact in any syllabus there are plenty of topics that can be motivated this way: Trigonometry can be used to help design a catapult and then quadratic equations will help aim it.  


I am a mathematician. Not an area that would fit in many top 10 lists of "things children like". In fact, even when presenting the subject we run in fear. The received wisdom is that every equation looses half your audience. This is idiotic, especially when dealing with children. The world is full of hard things for them. Making things clear is important, but making things easy? In mathematics I have put advanced concepts in front of primary school children and they have engaged excitedly. I told them explicitly that they would not understand everything. That it was OK to be a little confused and then we could just get on with it.  
You will probably be surprised by how many students get inspired by these ideas, others might be interested but not want to get too deep and others will be bored. That is fine, the same happens for everything. As an example few would argue that my initial example, sport, cannot be interesting, yet it holds little appeal to me. What we need to move on from, however, is the idea that concepts should be hidden as they are too challenging or complicated. This is like forbidding someone learning football from seeing professionals play, or trying not to confuse a young pianist by playing them [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach Bach] or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachmaninov Rachmaninov]. When they have entered school children have already learnt how to use their limbs, how to make sound and then how to give it meaning. They are used to challenge. Compared to that most mathematics is trivial. Education should be a challenge, with the acceptance that we might fail. In fact there is something wrong if anyone never fails. All schools and parents will have access to someone who gets excited and has expertise in something.


Challenge goes hand in hand with trying to solve problems. The abstract mathematics suddenly reveals its power when you want to solve something. If you want to teach quadratic equations, what about getting students to aim catapults? Even better get them to design the catapult first, so you can involve trigonometry. It will not excite all, but you will catch some children not excited by solving abstract problems (though do not underestimate the power of abstract problems!).
Challenging people will often get people excited. They become activated to learn for themselves. This has not always been easy, but today we have the internet. It is rapidly expanding and will soon be available to the majority of people on the earth. To the motivated nearly the whole of human knowledge is available here.  


This is mathematics, but every school has teachers who have deeper knowledge of something. They have access to even more in the local community. Even better the internet is still spreading incredibly fast to the people of the world. The greatest achievements of human genius are mixed in there for the curious and excited to find. This gives the tool to take people further. We can find the children everywhere who, presented with the internet, dive in and start to consume. Then we send out the "Harry Potter Letters" connecting them to a postdoc, not to teach, but to offer advice and guidance. Just imagine how many great thinkers could be found!
So we can help activate people by challenging them, and they can then set that spark to the tinder of the internet. What then? Can we find them, cultivate them? Something as simple as the number of pages a person views might make a credible metric. Could we use this, and then send out a "Harry Potter" style letter, connecting them to a postdoc to act as guide? How many [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein Einsteins] or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan Ramanujans] are out there waiting to be discovered?


This is a great global scheme, but what can we do locally? Let it happen, this has already begun. You can join in put exciting things in front of people and see if they bite. Find interesting projects you can help with. More importantly find ways to make it easier. Encourage openness. Open source and free software show the way, giving people access to the hidden workings of software to learn from and subvert. Open access manufacturing and Fab Labs let people use the tools to realise their projects. Open research and linking to the resources you use let everyone see the arguments and evidence for an idea. Finally in schools realise that teachers are important and give them freedom with responsibility for their actions.
==== References ====


List of resources:
* [http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf A Mathematician's Lament]
 
** Paul Lockhart, Unpublished (widely circulated amoungst mathematicians)
(todo) add a list of resources, activities and so on illustrating the amazing things happening already.
** The case for revealing the beauty and not just the techniques of mathematics
 
*[http://www.theplayethic.com/ Play Ethic]
 
**Pat Kane, Pan, New Edition 2005
=== Draft 1: ===
**The deeply thought through (yet readable!) account of how play can merge the inspiration and discipline required for creativity.
(will move to a different page soon, but need to head out to travel!)
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud8WRAdihPg Alan Kay] on learning and context
 
*[http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/idiscover_learning_framework.pdf Learning framework] from [http://www.nesta.org.uk/ NESTA]
The simplest form of education is training, you turn up, acquire a skill and leave. This is easy to structure, and more importantly to test. Yet training gets quickly out of date and cannot cope with rare events. We therefore require our education to do more. Not just teaching skills, but how to learn them, how to deal with the unknown, how to find new solutions. In short it should activate people to learn for themselves. There are now two essential skills: creativity and discipline. You need to have the idea, and then you need to work to make it happen. The problem is if your system worships creativity it can be hard to give discipline, if you worship discipline you can squash creativity.
*Blogs giving examples of how to challenge and engage children with mathematics
 
**[http://numberwarrior.wordpress.com/ Number Warrior]
None of this is radical, I would think that most educationalists of the past 50 years would agree. Despite this however our education systems do not succeed in finding the balance. Exams and skills rule and the system pushes only discipline, often despite the best efforts of the teachers involved. Despite a long period of understanding, therefore, the solution still alludes us. We cannot predict how even the best ideas from the top might take effect in an actual school. In some cases they can even cause harm. At this point someone often says to just let teachers get on with it. I am not convinced by this. It gives freedom to bad teachers, and we have to admit there are plenty of them. Good teachers would get a break, but in most cases they are already "just getting on with it", sometimes fighting the system if they have to. So what can be done?
**[http://101studiostreet.com/wordpress/ Think Thank Thunk]
 
**[http://blog.mrmeyer.com/ dy/dan]
Think about education. What matters? When it comes down to it, it is the teacher in the classroom, the parent in the home. It is the child sitting at the internet, vast swathes of the knowledge of humanity just in front of them. This is where we can make things better. Here we do not have to persuade the whole system, here we do not have to worry about how the system will mangle the message. Of course how to help here is also an issue, it needs to take account of the style and skills of the people involved.  
*The benefits of toys (specifically LEGO) for developing mathematical ability.
 
**[http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/412443519-68016584/content~db=all~content=a714856615 Advanced constructional play with LEGOs among preschoolers as a predictor of later school achievement in mathematics]
So the future is simple, talk to each other more. We have the tools to make it possible. If you are a teacher try new things and write about them. What worked? What didn't work?. Its already happening, there are some great blogs out there (some of the good maths ones are below). If writing things up is not your style, just take a look at what is out there. Try the suggestions and report back. Work out how you might improve. Build your own network and sources to give inspiration. Pick the battles where you can fight or subvert the system, Parents can do the same. Take advice from teachers, and find your own sources, make sure your children get exposed to lots of different ideas and activities. Finally children...no advice needed here. They have been doing this for years now, finding new ideas, learning to use computers, learning how to build things. Just imagine how much more could happen if we helped them?
***Charles Wolfgang; Laura Stannard; Ithel Jones, Early Child Development and Care, Volume 173, Issue 5 October 2003 , pages 467 - 475
 
**[http://store.tcpress.com/0807748471.shtml Blocks to Robots]
[http://numberwarrior.wordpress.com/ Number Warrior]
***Marina Umaschi Bers, Teachers College Press 2007
 
[http://101studiostreet.com/wordpress/ Think Thank Thunk]
 
[http://blog.mrmeyer.com/ dy/dan]

Revision as of 21:47, 21 July 2010

<< Go back to The future we deserve.

Author: Edmund Harriss, aka Gelada
Body of article: about 490 words.
Discussion page for this essay: Talk:TheFWD_Gelada_-_Future_Education
Previous drafts: TheFWD_Gelada_-_Future_Education_drafts

Education and the "Harry Potter Letter"

It is not hard to get kids playing football. You leave them somewhere with a ball. At the weekend you take them to see the game. Imagine if we could do the same with mathematics!

We can. I have built mathematical sculptures with people in their own time, happily volunteered. I have taken mathematics to festivals and seen parents drag their children away to give time to the other exhibits. It is possible to get kids to play spontaneously with mathematics and to give them ideas from the deep reaches of the subject. I use my research in geometry and tilings. Just leave children with wooden Penrose tiles and they will start to play. They will then ask questions, and find answers. Along with other games with mirrors, and toys like http://www.zometool.com/ zometool] and polydron this can lead to topics like group theory, four dimensional space and Gödel's incompleteness theorems. In fact in any syllabus there are plenty of topics that can be motivated this way: Trigonometry can be used to help design a catapult and then quadratic equations will help aim it.

You will probably be surprised by how many students get inspired by these ideas, others might be interested but not want to get too deep and others will be bored. That is fine, the same happens for everything. As an example few would argue that my initial example, sport, cannot be interesting, yet it holds little appeal to me. What we need to move on from, however, is the idea that concepts should be hidden as they are too challenging or complicated. This is like forbidding someone learning football from seeing professionals play, or trying not to confuse a young pianist by playing them Bach or Rachmaninov. When they have entered school children have already learnt how to use their limbs, how to make sound and then how to give it meaning. They are used to challenge. Compared to that most mathematics is trivial. Education should be a challenge, with the acceptance that we might fail. In fact there is something wrong if anyone never fails. All schools and parents will have access to someone who gets excited and has expertise in something.

Challenging people will often get people excited. They become activated to learn for themselves. This has not always been easy, but today we have the internet. It is rapidly expanding and will soon be available to the majority of people on the earth. To the motivated nearly the whole of human knowledge is available here.

So we can help activate people by challenging them, and they can then set that spark to the tinder of the internet. What then? Can we find them, cultivate them? Something as simple as the number of pages a person views might make a credible metric. Could we use this, and then send out a "Harry Potter" style letter, connecting them to a postdoc to act as guide? How many Einsteins or Ramanujans are out there waiting to be discovered?

References

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