| Jason on Fri, 11 Jul 2003 15:40:23 -0400 |
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On Friday 11 July 2003 1:39 pm, kmhryhpdblyx@spammotel.com wrote: > The reality is that most low-income children that attend public schools in > low-income neighborhoods score lower in standardized tests than their > counterparts in more affluent neighborhoods. That makes it very likely > that you'll be dealing with 5th or 6th graders who either can't read at > all, or read at the 2nd or 3rd grade level. You can either plan for the Not sure how lower standardized test scores indicates an incapacity to read at all. More than likely a general trend towards less exposure to "standardized" topics and less push from families, communities, and the schools is the culprit at the elementary school level. IMHO, elementary schools are filled with one common trait... potential. And I think that goes for privileged and underprivileged alike. And, I'm coming from a somewhat affluent upper-middle class background. > most-likely situation and design the solution appropriately, or you can > the corner. > > This doesn't mean that Linux is the wrong solution. I agree with the other > poster who stated that the OS shouldn't matter from the child's > perspective. They can learn which icons to click to fire up the web > browser, etc We need to design the desktop so that it's that simple. This > was also my point about maintaining the systems. The systems should be > setup to be as self-maintaining as possible. > I used to teach magic to kids at summer daycamps in Delaware. Some of these were filled with more privileged kids. Some were filled with kids from underprivileged families (generalized based on which communities they lived in). We generally taught all of the kids the same things. From my observation, the underprivileged kids were definitely more appreciative and more interested in whatever little things you would go out of your way to do for them. I'm not sure of the exact age ranges, but I think that this is somewhat common in younger children, but tends to reverse somewhat as the kids grow older. This is getting somewhat off topic, so I'll end there. Cheers, Jason > At 09:14 AM 7/11/2003 -0700, you wrote: > > > Jim Foster wrote: > > > > > > advocate) > > > > > > I can't believe you guys are debating giving C or Perl to low-income > > > elementary school students. These are kids who are probably not even > > > reading at their proper grade level. I bet that a good bunch > > > of these kids > > > won't even be able to read the man pages for some of these > > > packages, let > > > alone put them to use. > > > >Not that there's no correlation between low-income neighborhoods and > >quality of education, but these people are impoverished, not stupid. > >Assuming that they're stupid and withholding opportunities for them to > >challenge their own minds is certainly not going to help them in the long > > run. > > > >How many current Engineers were kids hacking around on their computer 20 > >or 30 years ago. How did they learn, considering there was no computer > >science curriculum in high schools then? They sought knowledge on their > >own because of their natural curiosity. > > > >Maybe you can't teach every man to fish, but if you got an extra pole, he > >might be alright. . . > > > >Just my $.02 > > -- > Jim Foster - jif "at" computer .org http://www.voicenet.com/~jfoster > "Being on a Beemer and not having a wave returned by a ICQ > 679709 > Sportster is like having a clipper ship's hailing not RAM 2500 Cummins > returned by an orphaned New Jersey solid waste barge." -OTL '03 GL1800A > > _________________________________________________________________________ > Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org > Announcements - http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce > General Discussion -- http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug Attachment:
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