The Laptop that Cried "Wolf"

In my last speculation about how future generations may socialize, I did not say anything about how those generations might be influenced by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) movement. Now that the laptop (called the XO) is finally being manufactured and distributed, the movement is getting a fair share of media coverage. Today's BBC News featured an interview with Walter Bender, one of the leaders of this movement, who is already apologizing for why it is not already an overnight success. From Bender's point of view, it is all the fault of politicians who, in the words of BBC reporter Jonathan Fildes, "were unwilling to commit because 'change equals risk'."

In Fildes' account the other side of the story comes from Nigeria:

In an interview with the BBC, Nigeria's education minister questioned the need for laptops in poorly equipped schools.

Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku said: "What is the essence of introducing One Laptop per Child when they don't have seats to sit down and learn; when they don't have uniforms to go to school in, where they don't have facilities?"

"We are more interested in laying a very solid foundation for quality education which will be efficient, effective, accessible and affordable."

The previous government of Nigeria had committed to buying one million laptops.

Dr Aja-Nwachuku said he was now assessing OLPC alongside other schemes from Microsoft and Intel.

"We are asking whether this is the most critical thing to drive education."

Last week a similar argument was posed to Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of OLPC, when he was interviewed on PBS NewsHour. Negroponte blithely responded that having one of his laptops would be like having a teacher "24/7." I relayed this comment to my wife, who teaches middle school at an independent school; and she took that remark as an insult from someone who knows nothing about teaching in lower-education classrooms. My guess is that just about any teacher in the United States, if not the world, would agree with her, no matter how strenuous their particular classroom conditions may be.

What Negroponte seems to have overlooked is that an educational experience is as much about socialization as it is about "knowledge acquisition," a principle that been with us ever since it was documented by Plato. The alternative is that Negroponte did not overlook the principle and is simply assuming that socialization can take place through the laptop and on a scale far wider than any classroom could provide. If that is the case, then we probably ought to lock him in a room with Cory Doctorow and see which of them emerges intact. This would probably be a bit unfair, because my guess is that neither of them has put in any "trench time" at a real classroom with real kids (who do not always behave "according to plan"). Still my personal bias would be with Doctorow, just because he seems to have a better grasp of the concept of "consequences" and engages that concept in his evaluative methods!