efenster@cdp.UUCP (02/10/89)
USSR Host to International Children's Computer Camp
by Eric Fenster
copyright 1988 Eric Fenster All rights reserved.
A few years ago when the Soviet Union announced its intention to put a
computer in every classroom by the year 2000, not only were there were doubts
that it could supply hardware at that magnitude any time soon, but sceptics
(reassuringly?) predicted that computerization of Soviet society--a sine qua
non for modernizing the economy--would stub its toe on the perceived dangers
of greatly relaxed control over information access and distribution. Many
also wondered whether the Soviets would try to teach computer use in a
centralized, prescribed fashion similar to other parts of their educational
system. After all, in the West we had seen creative and pedagogical benefits
from self-learning, networking and other forms of initiative which an overly
predetermined approach might have stifled.
The hardware problem is still not solved, but perestroika and glasnost
are clearly influencing the Soviet computer world. Signs of stirring came
about two years back when chess champion Garri Kasparov founded Moscow's first
computer club. While Kasparov had both Western contacts to gain access to
computers and helpful relations well up in the Soviet hierarchy, it was
perhaps most significant that his club was officially an unofficial one at a
time when informal associations still tended not to operate in the open. The
"non-existent" club was even handed 18th century quarters in central Moscow.
Its ceiling is crumbling, but the walls proudly display architects' renditions
of the historic elegance which should be restored beginning next year.
Entering the premises today still means crossing the threshold into a friendly
and exciting oasis where children and volunteer teachers devote their energy
both to learning and to the give-and-take of the democratic governing Council,
but the club is no longer unique. Already a year ago, informal organizations,
including computer clubs, were "springing up like mushrooms."
By 1987 there were also several summer computer camps in regular
operation, and at least one has rather far-ranging ambitions. It is the camp
run by the Institute for Programming Systems (IPS) of the Academy of Sciences,
located about 100 miles north of Moscow on Lake Pleshcheevo at Pereslavl-
Zalessky, whose churches and monasteries mark it as one of the historic towns
(founded in 1152) of the Golden Ring of old Russia. The site of the Institute
and its camp is no accident. First, Institute's leaders understand that new
ideas, however worthwhile, are likely to go unnoticed in the immensity of
Moscow; better somewhere smaller (but not too far away from the nation's
centre of influence either...). Second, Pereslavl attracts tourists for short
stays, but has little industry or cultural life and is in need of development.
Why not put it "on the map" as a computer centre?
This year the camp went international under the impetus of Yevgeny
Velikhov, Vice President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who saw
opportunities in the Soviet-American rapprochement and, along with his wife,
set about organizing a flurry of exchange activities with the West. The focus
upon children in these is also deliberate, for many of perestroika's leaders
recognize that psychological limits shaped by decades (some would say
centuries) of a different kind of behaviour mean their own generation can
never fully adapt to the profound changes their country requires. The best
contribution they can make is to create suitable conditions for those who
follow them.
When the International Children's Computer Camp held its opening
ceremonies early in August, UNESCO had signed on as a sponsoring organization,
and nearly 150 children--aged 8-16 with as many girls as boys--from six
countries (USSR, USA, Bulgaria, West Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia) joined
the diplomats, government officials, staff and journalists while the United
Nations flag was raised.
The festivities were hardly over when the children, from novices to
dedicated hackers, were off to the department in which each had chosen to
spend the three-week session. The options included mathematics, physics,
music and linguistics, ecology, programming, data bases, games, Prologo
(Prolog+Logo) and Robotland. Nearly 100 computers were available, which came
from a variety of sources: a few IBM PCs, Soviet and West German (Multitech)
compatibles, Soviet Apple (AGAT) and Bulgarian Apple IIE (Pravets) clones,
Yamahas, etc. Most had dually-marked Latin-Cyrillic keyboards with a special
key to switch between alphabets, but except in Robotland (below) programming
commands were in English.
Despite a seemingly unlimited learning menu, there was consensus that in
an international camp the computer is not an end in itself but a medium to
facilitate the interaction of the campers. It was also agreed that computers
should not isolate children from traditional cultural knowledge and
expression, so efforts were made to integrate all art forms. Major emphasis
was placed on ecology since, as the USSR awakens to years of its abuse of
nature, reversing the damage is fast becoming a significant public movement.
The ecology department was therefore one of the most active. Distinguished
scientists came from Moscow to give talks, and the nearby lake was used as a
living laboratory. The computers were then the tools for analysis and
simulation.
Probably the greatest implications for computer pedagogy come from
Robotland, a two-year course for children 9-12, developed by the Institute for
Programming Systems and being tested in the Pereslavl-Zalessky schools. A
three-week condensed version was used at the camp. Robotland has four basic
components: 1) an introduction to the concept of information and its storage,
manipulation and transfer in both the "real" and computer worlds; 2) the
computer as a tool for writing, graphics, communications and data bases; 3)
programming exercises which help children to understand the idea of a task
and how to break it down into ordered parts, reacting to situations, thinking
through to a solution; 4) creativity based as much upon intuition as upon
rules, with the aim of bringing children to the point of making hypotheses.
About forty programs have been written by the Institute in support of the
course, and its systemic approach has already been presented in international
meetings. The children's responses to Robotland were the answer to any school
teacher's dream. They pounded on the door to get into the classroom each
morning and after lunch, and usually the only way to enforce rest breaks was
to turn off the computers and physically push the children outside.
Almost every activity occurring in the USSR these days can be a vantage
point on the process of change in the country. The camp was no exception, and
the first encounter with democratization came early in the session when staff
were told that the letters saying they would receive free meals were in error;
they'd have to pay for them. In the recent past, the resentment might have
been concealed, but now organization was immediate, and even the word strike
was afloat. The director was summoned to the theatre the following day to
explain himself and allowed to speak only to the elected committee on stage
while the rest of the staff observed the negotiations, an adroit combination
of popular and representative democracy. A solution which involved finding
external funding for the meals was eventually agreed upon, but more
interesting and relevant was that however genuine the feelings and tensions
being acted out on the surface, everybody understood the often absurd
bureaucratic confines within which the director had to operate, and nobody
tried to push him into the abyss beyond his powers of resolution.
Not wanting to be identified with old Soviet stereotypes of rigidity, the
camp administration's initial policy was that the children had "complete
freedom" to choose their activities, but it wasn't long before nobody was even
getting any sleep in the resulting anarchy. An "old method" was used to meet
the situation: one morning before breakfast the children were simply
assembled to hear the new daily schedule read out. The last part, about
turning computers off at 10pm and lights at 11pm, was drowned out in shouts of
protest. The children, however, knew about the staff organization and decided
on some democracy of their own; they elected a council and demand
negotiations. Talks held the next day arrived at a compromise sometime after
midnight. (Lights out and quiet at 11pm, but no sanctions for staying out
later unless the fatigue showed up in class.)
Even Robotland, where each day's class began with a discussion, could be
contentious, er, democratic. The day the 10-year-olds were told they would
write with the computer for the first time, they protested that they were
tired of having the same program as the 8-year-olds and that respect should be
shown for their age. Patient explanations that they'd use more advanced text
processing functions than the younger children got them to take their places
in front of the screens.
Alas, other realities showed how up-to-date the camp was. One morning it
was discovered that all ten computers borrowed for the session from a Moscow
institute were contaminated with a virus which was propagating in their hard
discs. The code was quickly found and the disinfection carried out, but the
origin was never determined. Of course, in a spirit of goodwill children had
brought games and other programs to the camp to share, and the culprit was
probably lurking in one of them.
The camp was not just computers, but a broad array of sports activities
and tournaments, national days put on by each country, cinema, mathematics and
linguistics competitions, folk art demonstrations, a visit by the stars of a
popular Soviet TV game show, candlelight poetry readings, discussions
comparing school systems in the countries from which the children came, trips
to other towns in the Golden Ring, meetings with children from other
international camps, and so on. And there was music. When a troupe of
Cossacks showed up, the theatre couldn't contain the dancing they provoked,
and it moved to the canopy of the trees late into the night.
Even more special was the invitation which brought the choir from the
nearby seminary-monastery at Zagorsk. The whole camp followed it from one
ancient Pereslavl church to another listening to the liturgical music, and it
was not just the magnificent harmonies which left hardly a dry eye, but the
fact that for the Russians this encounter was a kind of reconciliation with
some of the roots of their culture long excluded from daily experience. One
13-year-old boy felt moved to write an article the next day for the camp
newspaper. It was not only the music which touched him deeply, but finding
that the clerical students in their black robes--the sort of person he'd never
met before--were not so different from him; they joked, laughed and conversed
like ordinary people.
The American children had a similar experience in store. A group of
Soviet visitors turned up unexpectedly one day. It turned out that they had
all been orphaned, most at the age of 7, when their parents died during the
seige of Leningrad, and they had been evacuated to this camp. Here they
continued school (a surviving teacher was with them) and worked on a nearby
farm which grew food for the front. They had come for the annual reunion
which draws them from all the parts of the country to which they had dispersed
after the war. They could only stay a short time, but when they heard that
Americans were present in the camp, they wanted to talk with all we could
round up. As children, they had also planted the ubiquitous pines which now
tower over the campgrounds, and under this canopy the groups spoke across two
generations.
* * *
In the end, although everybody had an unforgettable time... nobody on the
staff was satisfied. Despite all that was successful, every aspect of the
camp and its organization was subjected to constant criticism and self-
criticism, and not a soul would admit to even being sure of coming back. But
they will, because the commitment is strong, and the utter lack of complacency
is the best insurance that next year will be even better.
And let's not forget the strategy for the town of Pereslavl-Zalesski.
The American campers this year all came from Cupertino, California (the home
of Apple), and during the session a sister-city agreement was signed. So now
you practically know how to say Silicon Valley in Russian.