Wozniak Gets Personal On Innovation 161
snydeq writes "Companies are doggedly pursuing the next big thing in technology, but nothing seems to be pointing to the right way these days, claims the legendary Steve Wozniak. The reason? 'You tend to deal with the past,' replicating what you know in a new form. Consider the notion of computing eyeware like Google Glass: 'People have been marrying eyewear with TV inputs for 20 years,' Wozniak says. True innovation, Wozniak claims, becomes more human, more personal. People use technology more the less it feels like technology. 'The software gets more accepted when it works in human ways — meaning in noncomputer ways.' Here, Wozniak says, is the key to technology's role in the education system."
And no amount of technology can save the American education system: "We put the technology into a system that damages creative thinking — the kids give up, and at a very early age."
Re:I blame textbook monopolies. (Score:3, Interesting)
It really does come back to the parents. I have three kids and they each have about one hour of homework per night. I am a single father so I have to help them on my own each night after I get home from work. I have a B.S. degree so I am not a total moron (haha). The problem I run into after work is that I want to be disengaged and play EVE, but I can't. And I cannot parallel-process my help with each of my kids. They are about 2 years apart in age and if I am helping one, then the other two feel like they can stop working on their homework until I get back to helping them. Another problem is that they each act like the homework is new material every night and the teacher did not go over it during the day. I know I am not alone with these problems because I have had the fathers of their friends call me and ask if my kids were struggling with their homework too.
I am 38 years old. Maybe I am not a very good dad or explainer of homework. Maybe the fact that my state (Nevada) is 50th in the nation for education. Maybe the fact that I am alone in raising these kids are all factors in why it is so tough.
What are the rising star countries doing to pump out such smart people? India, Japan, China are all creating brilliant people who want our jobs. We should be embarrassed of what we have become. People, I think as bad as things are in the USA, this is as good as it is going to be.
Re:I blame textbook monopolies. (Score:0, Interesting)
Being a PTA board member and knowing many stories/data, I strongly disagree with your list.
"Overemphasis on testing": Wrong! There are not enough tests on certain subject. The depth of tests is also a problem.
- A big banner advocated by schools/teachers is that creativity is completely the opposite side of test/exams. Then, how can you claim that products are good without testing them?
"Disengaged parents": Some parents are disengaging. However, many parents are blocked away by schools even though parents want to engage so badly.
- In my areas, many parents are immigrants. They have first hand experience on how brutal global competitions are. Those ES/MS schools/teachers have no idea at all.
"Underpaid teachers": This is a myth. Teachers have pensions/long vacations. Schools close in "BAD" weather days while many parents go to work.
- Meanwhile, in this country, ES/MS math are taught by teachers with education degrees instead of STEM degrees. Therefore, many are not fully understand what they are doing.
De-motivated and disempowered teachers: This is flatly wrong. Teachers, at least teacher unions are very very powerful.
Inadequate funding (especially in poorer neighborhoods): Please check title 1 from the federal level and other funds from local level. In poor DC neighborhood, what is amount of dollars spent on each kid.
God, I can go on and on and on...
How to change the status quo on education? Make it less political and more technical.
Re:I blame textbook monopolies. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh come on, kids have been watching TV, listening music and reading books for many generations.
You seem to assume that the problems in education have appeared from nowhere in the last few years.
Also, when I were a lad, at least in the UK, Kids TV had a lot more imaginative adventure serials, magazine shows about hobbies and current affairs and game shows where the contestants actually had to know or do stuff; and a lot less cheap cartoons designed explicitly to promote toys, thinly-disguised adverts for music and fashion accessories, mundane soap operas about dull people living dull lives, no-brain-required 'contests' and talent shows designed explicitly to raise money from premium-rate phone lines... all designed on the principle that anything requiring an attention span of more than 5 seconds will hit ratings. Seriously - modern kids television (insofar as it still exists) positively encourages goldfish-level attention spans. Hell, some programmes are flagged 'ADHD' in the listings!
(Boringly, 'ADHD' in the listings apparently means 'High Def' and 'Audio Description available'.)
As for the 'firing bad teachers' bit - the danger is that will only clear up a tiny percentage of teachers who are dramatically bad, while further re-enforcing the obsession with testing. If your job is on the line based on your test results, you're not going to skimp on the test cramming in order to do something creative or interesting.
Very smart, will never happen - in public schools (Score:4, Interesting)
You know what is funny though, is that your list is exactly the process that a lot of homeschooled kids go through.
I know, I was one.
Technology will not cure what truly ails you (Score:5, Interesting)
Teaching is hard. It requires talent and a whole lot of effort, in spite of what that ass G B Shaw once sad ("ha HA!"). The problem with technology is that it gives so many people in the school systems the false assurance that it can solve the main problems plaguing the education system (see the recent episode of South Park parodying the ObamaCare website fiasco). But what's really plaguing the eduaction system is that parents are getting less involved and more demanding even as teachers become increasingly overworked, underpaid, and poorly trained.
A big part of it has to do with the squeezing of the middle class. Decades ago you could actually earn a decent wage on a public school teacher's salary, enough to buy a house and raise a family. Who can do that now? And in a metropolitan area? Fuck that. I honestly don't see how people are making it. I think the best teachers now go to private schools or colleges, and many (but not all, mind you) of the ones who remain are the ones who just aren't very good. People love to blame the unions for protecting bad teachers, but without the unions I think the situation would be far far worse.
Re:I blame textbook monopolies. (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe schools should be places where there are enough resources that kids are mostly done learning at the end of the school day. Homework is a nice exercise in and of itself that kids could benefit from doing maybe once a week or so.
Re:On Education (Score:4, Interesting)
2 when they hit K5 1 separate the boys from the girls (outside of Dance Class and Recess)
This has been tried before and it's been found to not work. It's one of the few things in education that has been pretty much proven not to work. I just read an article [indiatimes.com] the other day about seperating by gender, and it just serves to reinforce sterotypes when the genders are not together. Boys are allowed more freedom to move around since "boys will be boys" when there are girls who could use freedom of movement as well. If you were going to break up classes, break them up by the way they learn.
Re:Technology will not cure what truly ails you (Score:0, Interesting)
Teaching is hard. It requires talent and a whole lot of effort
Maybe, but there is a lot of repetition. Seems like teaching counting or simple math should be a solved problem with an expert system providing individual, best practices instruction. A classroom teacher can't do that because she has many kids to help. If the computer could to the individual, routine stuff, the the teacher should have more time to handle special cases. In short, technology ought to be able to help, but for some reason it isn't.
Perhaps a good proof of concept open source project would be something that teaches the first grade core curriculum math requirements.
What's the best iPAD app out there to do this now, and is it capable of doing the job for some percentage of the students?