Cosmic Thinkers, web games, getting schools enthused

[mwforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Harvey Bornfield)]

Lisa:
Welcome. It is awesome to find another prophet in a world of mannequins. 
If these opening remarks seem for now but largely philosophical, let 
them be 'oceanically so'. Then launch your ship on these waters.

I agree that the optimism is wings, labor boots. Between these two 
pulsing poles we navigate mortal waters. And so, for starters, entertain 
the notion which Papert spawned, and hold to it as a 'basal metabolism' 
for what follows: that the relationship between teaching and learning is 
in long overdue need of chiropractic realignment. And so it follows as 
true also that if we indulge time to reflect upon the notion of the role 
of teacher as "boss", borrowed from top-down hard-core industrial models 
of western externally-driven ambition, to an invitation to view the 
teacher as a mentor, as Socrate's Ethereal Daemon, as a facilitating 
voice of genius within, then the outer person, the warrior who must 
survive and triumph, finds a connection to the cosmos, and discovers the 
lyric poet within, elastic, mysterious, elusive, a would-be immortal.

Syrveyed in this way, so now an intense imagination appears to visualize 
this turning point in time when schools must learn how de-mechanize 
their operating premises, and divest themselves of the euphoria and 
obsession with the promulgation of machine-based visions of what 
education really is, if civilization itself is to survive and thrive:
So I imagine, and offer this for your consideration:

Educational Bureaucracies are habit-driven, dogmatic, heavy-handed, and 
their way of life is like brushstrokes of a the sledge-hammer, and like 
stampeding rhinos in the Ewok forest, the thunder of fear-based 
assessment, standardization associated with norms-based testing deafens 
most to the flutter and flight of celebration-based sharing. To 
suffocate enchantment, and the arising of daring and courage which lives 
in unrehearsed oral tradition energy, and replace it now with a system 
of thought that deserves the noble name philosophy, but instead is 
downsized to policy and formula which commends and applauds knowledge 
and skills as weapons rather than instruments of wonder, this is the 
very crux of the malaise, and its utter reversal the greatest challenge  
in our schools today.

To toast the wonderful intent of your site, one entertains an 
interesting, expansive notion: "All Thinking is Cosmic Thinking." 
Otherwise one has but rote. But to kindle, to engage, to sustain on a 
long-term-basis a durable curiosity in those who have inadvertently 
bought into the slave mentality of business-as-usual, which, to coin a 
new verb, "Darth Vaders" most institutions of higher learning, and 
trickles down, like the gait of a solemn pall-bearer, into the 
shrapnelled, jigsawed wasteland of public education, - this is a noble, 
desirable idea; More, it is indeed an inspiration, a 
consciousness-leavening paradigm whose time has come. Nonetheless, 
here's the rub:

First go upstairs where the (Cosmic) Thinking should be occurring, and 
observe: Snow White's spinning wheel is still spinless, numb, and like 
her, frozen in carbonite, lies inert in an attic of human abstraction, 
and for most of the Snow Whites in the world, trapped in same-old 
same-old, the gleam, the promise, the adventure of a Prince Charming, 
the voice which lives in muses and bursts misgiving, the taste of his 
kiss, is still but a lifeless, hypothetical speculation!

To overcome taking on educational systems, with whom I have been 
sparring and jousting for the greater part of the last 14 years on 
various reservations throughout Arizona, I have found that setting up 
energy-enthusiastic communities of teachers, parents and students who 
engage in authoring and pioneering and count bravery as an acceptable 
cover charge to the arena of exploration, and letting these communities 
of computer, constructivist-saavy enclaves live modestly in parallel, 
perhaps better, in an inner concentric circle with traditional teaching 
modalities, like lighthouses pouring out their wares upon the land, 
setting up working models of the alternative, in what some educators 
call the "Innovation Diffusion" model, I have found that this works well 
to welcome those who would jump ship in search of vibrationally greener 
pastures.

Thus it came to pass in many of the schools within the Navajo and Hopi 
reservations in which I taught computer to elementary school children, 
that from one to three days a week, community nights where parents and 
their children could mint fresh money, impressed in various 
denominations with the faces of a digitally-photographed family, or a 
revolving solar system whose planetary velocities were slider-adjustable 
in a one-minute equals one year swerve rate, or dinosaurs with the faces 
of children who spoke when clicked, found their way south from realms of 
joy and created learning climates and ambience of unrivalled spark and 
spunk.

It is creative visualization which melts the ice, and replaces the 
military siege-mentality of schools with "the first day of spring", 
which Tucson sports at least 180 days a year.

Wam regards,
Harvey Bornfield
www.mythologics.org


On Friday, February 7, 2003, at 09:51 AM, LRichter99@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Wendy:
> Thank you for the positive comments about Cosmic Thinkers.  Your own 
> site is quite phenomenal. I enjoyed it immensely..particularly the 
> variety and depth of what you cover.  Your accolades are clearly 
> warranted.
>
> Dale:
> Yes, my games can hang up the computer. I appreciate your disgust.  
> I'll add a comment to my web page warning viewers that with a dial-up 
> (or 56K) connection, patience will be of the essence.   (I've recently 
> switched to a cable modem, and the projects run within seconds. I am 
> aware, however, that high-speed connections are not the majority.) As 
> Wendy mentioned, there is a trade off between beauty and practicality 
> (isn't there always?). My games are not geared toward the general 
> public;  I have them out there as examples to my students (or potential 
> students) and therefore wanted to show them the full range of 
> possibilities.  And to me, a project without music is one terribly 
> lacking.
>
> Wendy:
> As for converting parents, I find that nothing sells like genuine 
> enthusiasm.  I have it, my students have it, and when I invite the 
> parents in on the last day of class for a special presentation and 
> hands-on look at what we do and WHAT THEIR CHILDREN have accomplished, 
> they all buy a copy of MicroWorlds on the spot. As for convincing 
> educators, I can't imagine that if a hands-on MW workshop were offered 
> locally at a convenient time and at an acceptable cost (i.e., free) 
> that many wouldn't jump to incorporate it, assuming of course that 
> their curiosities were engaged beforehand.
> What are your thoughts?  How have you met with success?
>
> Thanks --
> Lisa Richter
>
> _______________________________________________
> MWForum mailing list
> MWForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://mia.openworldlearning.org/mwforum/
"Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of 
knowledge which comprehends mankind, but mankind cannot comprehend."
Ludwig van Beethoven
Lisa:
Welcome. It is awesome to find another prophet in a world of mannequins. If these opening remarks seem for now but largely philosophical, let them be 'oceanically so'. Then launch your ship on these waters.

I agree that the optimism is wings, labor boots. Between these two pulsing poles we navigate mortal waters. And so, for starters, entertain the notion which Papert spawned, and hold to it as a 'basal metabolism' for what follows: that the relationship between teaching and learning is in long overdue need of chiropractic realignment. And so it follows as true also that if we indulge time to reflect upon the notion of the role of teacher as "boss", borrowed from top-down hard-core industrial models of western externally-driven ambition, to an invitation to view the teacher as a mentor, as Socrate's Ethereal Daemon, as a facilitating voice of genius within, then the outer person, the warrior who must survive and triumph, finds a connection to the cosmos, and discovers the lyric poet within, elastic, mysterious, elusive, a would-be immortal.

Syrveyed in this way, so now an intense imagination appears to visualize this turning point in time when schools must learn how de-mechanize their operating premises, and divest themselves of the euphoria and obsession with the promulgation of machine-based visions of what education really is, if civilization itself is to survive and thrive:
So I imagine, and offer this for your consideration:


Educational Bureaucracies are habit-driven, dogmatic, heavy-handed, and their way of life is like brushstrokes of a the sledge-hammer, and like stampeding rhinos in the Ewok forest, the thunder of fear-based assessment, standardization associated with norms-based testing deafens most to the flutter and flight of celebration-based sharing. To suffocate enchantment, and the arising of daring and courage which lives in unrehearsed oral tradition energy, and replace it now with a system of thought that deserves the noble name philosophy, but instead is downsized to policy and formula which commends and applauds knowledge and skills as weapons rather than instruments of wonder, this is the very crux of the malaise, and its utter reversal the greatest challenge  in our schools today. 

To toast the wonderful intent of your site, one entertains an interesting, expansive notion: "All Thinking is Cosmic Thinking." Otherwise one has but rote. But to kindle, to engage, to sustain on a long-term-basis a durable curiosity in those who have inadvertently bought into the slave mentality of business-as-usual, which, to coin a new verb, "Darth Vaders" most institutions of higher learning, and trickles down, like the gait of a solemn pall-bearer, into the shrapnelled, jigsawed wasteland of public education, - this is a noble, desirable idea; More, it is indeed an inspiration, a consciousness-leavening paradigm whose time has come. Nonetheless, here's the rub:

First go upstairs where the (Cosmic) Thinking should be occurring, and observe: Snow White's spinning wheel is still spinless, numb, and like her, frozen in carbonite, lies inert in an attic of human abstraction, and for most of the Snow Whites in the world, trapped in same-old same-old, the gleam, the promise, the adventure of a Prince Charming, the voice which lives in muses and bursts misgiving, the taste of his kiss, is still but a lifeless, hypothetical speculation! 

To overcome taking on educational systems, with whom I have been sparring and jousting for the greater part of the last 14 years on various reservations throughout Arizona, I have found that setting up energy-enthusiastic communities of teachers, parents and students who engage in authoring and pioneering and count bravery as an acceptable cover charge to the arena of exploration, and letting these communities of computer, constructivist-saavy enclaves live modestly in parallel, perhaps better, in an inner concentric circle with traditional teaching modalities, like lighthouses pouring out their wares upon the land, setting up working models of the alternative, in what some educators call the "Innovation Diffusion" model, I have found that this works well to welcome those who would jump ship in search of vibrationally greener pastures.

Thus it came to pass in many of the schools within the Navajo and Hopi reservations in which I taught computer to elementary school children, that from one to three days a week, community nights where parents and their children could mint fresh money, impressed in various denominations with the faces of a digitally-photographed family, or a revolving solar system whose planetary velocities were slider-adjustable in a one-minute equals one year swerve rate, or dinosaurs with the faces of children who spoke when clicked, found their way south from realms of joy and created learning climates and ambience of unrivalled spark and spunk. 

It is creative visualization which melts the ice, and replaces the military siege-mentality of schools with "the first day of spring", which Tucson sports at least 180 days a year.

Wam regards,
Harvey Bornfield
www.mythologics.org


On Friday, February 7, 2003, at 09:51 AM, LRichter99@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Wendy: 
> Thank you for the positive comments about Cosmic Thinkers.  Your own site is quite phenomenal. I enjoyed it immensely..particularly the variety and depth of what you cover.  Your accolades are clearly warranted.  
>
> Dale: 
> Yes, my games can hang up the computer. I appreciate your disgust.  I'll add a comment to my web page warning viewers that with a dial-up (or 56K) connection, patience will be of the essence.   (I've recently switched to a cable modem, and the projects run within seconds. I am aware, however, that high-speed connections are not the majority.) As Wendy mentioned, there is a trade off between beauty and practicality (isn't there always?). My games are not geared toward the general public;  I have them out there as examples to my students (or potential students) and therefore wanted to show them the full range of possibilities.  And to me, a project without music is one terribly lacking. 
>
> Wendy:
> As for converting parents, I find that nothing sells like genuine enthusiasm.  I have it, my students have it, and when I invite the parents in on the last day of class for a special presentation and hands-on look at what we do and WHAT THEIR CHILDREN have accomplished, they all buy a copy of MicroWorlds on the spot. As for convincing educators, I can't imagine that if a hands-on MW workshop were offered locally at a convenient time and at an acceptable cost (i.e., free) that many wouldn't jump to incorporate it, assuming of course that their curiosities were engaged beforehand.
> What are your thoughts?  How have you met with success?  
>
> Thanks --
> Lisa Richter 
>
> _______________________________________________
> MWForum mailing list
> MWForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://mia.openworldlearning.org/mwforum/
"Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind, but mankind cannot comprehend."
Ludwig van Beethoven