The Children's Machine

A wonderful book, packed with insightful ideas on both how computers can be used to transform education and how they permit different “ways of knowing” (epistemologies) beyond the abstract that is currently supervalued by school.

Rather than the typical edtech ideas that boil down to “use computers to accelerate what already happens in school”, this book provides a jumping-off point for what real transformation might look like. This includes things like:

• Concrete examples of computers & programming empowering students
• Supporting different epistemologies beyond just the abstract/formal – eg learning geometrical ideas by trying to draw your name by programming a physical turtle
• An extension of constructivism called “constructionism” – the role of concrete constructions in the world as a support for those in the head
• Self-directed & personal learning – eg designing activities to give children the power to expand what their existing culture already values (drawing) rather than designing activities to get them to do some specific thing the teacher wants them to learn
• Consideration for sociology & culture as the key force by which such change might actually happen – a suggestion for more experimental Little Schools with a clear educational philosophy
• A word for learning & getting better at it – mathetics

Questions this book sparked for me:

• How can LLMs allow children to do real work?
• How can we transfer the tacit knowledge of what it takes to be a good teacher?
  • One important part is having high-level theory of mind
• How do schools learn?
• What would a civic society run by and for children look like?
• How can I make my own learning “dirtier,” in the spirit of bricolage? How can I make it more embodied, concrete, emotional?
• What are alternative “ways of knowing” I can seriously expand into?
  • The formal/abstract is so deep-rooted & dominant for me
• Akin to Papert turtles, what is the pre-formal kids’ use case for LLMs? Can they be used to physically externalize some conception?
• In the future, what will be an obvious use of LLMs that today has never been done before / feels inconceivable?
• Can we physical-ize the concepts in the Strogatz nonlinear dynamics book?
  • “Make simulations” is obvious – but how to make them truly physical?
• Our language inherits our need for (often centralized) causality. Could you speak only in an emergent/acausal way? What might this even look like?
• What is the epistemological preference of Alpha School? Montessori? etc
• What is my school’s philosophy & values? What will its epistemological preference be?
  • First stab at this: Why am I interested in alt-ed?