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Gates' Future of Education Straight Out of '60s
theodp writes "Bill Gates really should have talked more with ex-Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie. While Khan Academy's new self-paced exercises, coach management options, and game mechanics (merit badges/points) prompted Gates to gush to the high-rollers at Salman Khan's TED Talk that they 'just got a glimpse of the future of education,' Ozzie's seen this movie before, having written similarly-featured PLATO courseware as a student at Illinois. In the '70s. On plasma terminals. With touch screens. Fifty years ago last Friday, 27-year-old EE PhD whiz kid Don Bitzer and partner Peter Braunfeld demonstrated the nascent PLATO system to assembled dignitaries at the 'President's Faculty Conference on Improving Our Educational Aims in the Sixties.' Hey, everything old is new again! Gates is hardly the only tech luminary who don't-know-much-about-PLATO-history — CS Prof Daniel Sleator felt compelled to school the Web's founders on PLATO in '94."
The wheel of time turns, moving from one age to the next. History falls to myth, myth to legend, legend to half remembered tales spoken around the fire, and eventually, long after even that is forgotten, that age comes again.
For those who really care -- Plato (emulated) is still online.
Cyber1
Actually education is there for the taking. There are those who seek out knowledge.
Bill, you don't understand education. You didn't take the time to understand children, teenagers, sociology, social psychology, pedagogy, performance/theater, linguistics, or any other field necessary to comprehend what a teacher is and just spend your time and money looking for a silver bullet cure to any ailments.
First, Bill tried to give away millions to students to pay for their college education. Of course, it came in the form of competitive scholarships so those who were already destined to receive a bunch of money (because of a strong educational history and innate brilliance) simply got more. This made no change.
Then came the funding of techno-super schools. But they were neither in areas in need of improvement nor were the schools any cheaper (more expensive, obviously) to run. Another failure.
Bill, if you want to make a change, do this:
Create a system for the development of teachers. Not super-teachers or techno-teachers-- just teachers. At the moment there is no hub for potential teachers to go to that catalogs all the credential or master's programs. There's no easier step-by-step guide for the process in California. Everyone just quotes a vague order of things.
Also, if you don't want to help the creation of teachers (and hell, give grants to pay for their wages!), then try just funding the modest renovation of crap-hole schools and class rooms in low-income neighborhoods.
If you want to make a change, help the poor. It's that easy.
You don't know any security guards that make that? Maybe that's because "security guard" is not the private sector equivalent: "bodyguard" is a better analogy, as the levels of danger are more equivalent. Most professional bodyguards make more than $54k per year, and they do have better pensions. Police can retire from the force after a given number of years, but still face a penalty for early retirement before the age of 65, just like anyone else. Do you really think $54k is a lot of money? That's barely middle class. Shouldn't police officers be able to afford a home and college for their kids?
The rich want us to fight each other to the death over the scraps they cast off, and you seem only too happy to side with them. Stop looking greedily at the meager compensation public sector workers make, if you want to blame someone, blame the ultra-wealthy ruling elites. They stole your pay and pension, and now they want you to blame someone who still has theirs. Well, if you want what the public sector has, stand up to the greedy bosses and UNIONIZE!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton