[comp.society] Education vs. Right Think & Thinking with Hypertexts

hugh@hoptoad.UUCP (Hugh Daniel) (12/18/87)

One thing that Garry Gleason said keyed a memory of a lesson I learned
when I was in High School. While fighting the system I found that there
were three goals of my school system:

	1.	Socialization: the teaching of what is right in the
		socity and what is expected.  In other words how to
		think and live in the 'expected' 'right' way.  This
		can also be though of as brain washing.
	2.	Babysitting:  This is becoming more imporant as the
		'system' needs more workers (wage slaves...) and having
		parents free to work is important.  One can get nice
		and Orwellian (excuse the sick perversion of his name)
		about this sort of thing.
	3.	Teaching:  You notice that this is far down on the
		list.

I don't even want to think where learning fits in to this list, but it
was my main goal which put me at odds wiht the school board most of my
four years.  Nor do I want to think about how these folks got the egoboo
that each person needs.

I noticed mention that it is a good thing to teach people to think for
themselves...

In any case this is a general problem with teaching people to think
for themselves.  It took my mother a decade to figure out that I thought
for myself and that no amount of labor was going to change that in her
favor.  Imagine you are a goverment that wants (for whatever reasons of
your *own*) to impliment some policy, and you have a population of folks
who don't think for themselves, no problem.

Now someone comes along and tries to teach each person to think for
themselves, so that each might feed themselves and make a better world.
This is not so good for most of the 170+ goverments and their 'policies'.

With tools like AI, Nanotechnology and the like showing up in the next
few decades, I want *LOTS* more people who think for themselves in the
world, as there is a lot of work for us all to do.  But what of the parents,
teachers, mayors and generals who have some 'job' they feel they have to
do, what will they think of having to deal with each person who insists
on thinking things out for themselves?

If you want a taste of this, try teaching a class of thirty or more
students (work with kids, most 'groups' are too passive as students to
prove this point) (boy do I sound jaded!) with just ONE student who has
to think everything though themselves, but doesn't know enough so is
constantly asking questions that are not in the textbook...  If the 
teacher has the time to deal wiht that student then it's a wonderful
experience for both, but if the teacher has to deal with 29 others the
one is most often just another troublesome student.

I am going far afield here, but this does lead me to answer a question
I have seen in this group: What good is hypertext?

Many ways of thinking through something (a nice nebulus thing!) require
much information that is in ones (ie my) head already.  So off I will
go to research some point, asking questions of others trying to find 
enough information to answer my question.  Much (most?) useful/hard
information is in the form of writings that are part of a larger whole.
So that in exploring any one thing I have often been led over many works,
but more often I have wanted to explore something, but to do so proved
impossible as the book was checked out or there was no good reference on
the subject or some such.

An extensive hypertext sytem (aka a Library of Congress sized system!)
with links that can be followed in seconds insted of minutes or *hours*
would be a tool for me to get the information I need to figure something
out or just to explore.  Unlike paper with a good hypertext system I can
find who references this spot in this work, possibly leading to a much
better understanding of what is going on.

Often I have wanted to know more about some subject, and so I have sought
out teachers, since asking another person is about the fastest way I know 
of finding something out.  Often after just a few questions many teachers
do not know enought to answer a question or have other things to do.  Much
of the time the teacher cannot understand the (very possibly half baked!)
thought system of the student and tell them to go away.

Where does the student go next?  Libraries are very slow, other people
are often much faster, if they know much of what you need.  Many things I
have started to look up I have never finished becase all I had was one
text that I could not make head nor tails of.   When all the texts are 
poured into a hypertext system I could always follow a link over to
another text that seems to make more sence at the time.

In some ways hypertext is just a fast version of what we have now, but
hypertext systems cross over some cusp that makes them *much* more useful
then just a bigger faster library.

Hypertext systems such as I talk about here are tools that can support
people who need to figure things out for themselves from the common pool
of information only.  This alone might greatly lower the confusion of not
knowing what other are talking about during 'learned' discorse.

This is why I have worked with extensive hypertext systems, so that I
can explore what others have done before me and by following the many
currents of a body of works, hopfuly find a state of understanding.

Hugh Daniel

jdb@dkstar.UUCP (Jon Bennett) (12/29/87)

I think that the view of the hypertext as a faster version of what
we have in place now is an excellent idea.  However, when I try to integrate 
in my mind the two ideas that were expressed in your excellent article I run
into some problems.

I think that your views of what the school system is, what it is used for, 
and its ultimate product are very accurate.  I also think that your 
fighting the system for what you perceived it to be (in my opinion correctly)
to be is commendable.

The part about a student who is thinking for himself as being viewed by 
the teacher as a problem to be "dealt with" is also correct in my opinion.

Ok, enough agreeing.

The "Orwellian" observation you made is frightening.  If the hypertext that 
you envisioned (Lib. of Congress sized) existed, it would be easy for the 
"system" to own it, and control its contents.  

If you think that the system views those who think for themselves as a 
menace, and the system has access to the ability to control the hypertext,
then even the ones that don't "power up" in the system as brainwashed would
become that way, or mentally damaged, by having the hypertext controlled by
the system that they are rightly fighting.

I know, I am being a harbinger of death and destruction, but as we live in 
an age where governments have trillion dollar budgets, and a time where 
the technology curve is bending up so quickly that it looks like a wall, 
having a system with access to such a large and wonderful hypertext is 
inevitable, and VERY dangerous.  

This is a wonderful topic.  Lets all carry it further and see where it leads 
us.

Jon Bennett

news@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (News Subsystem ) (01/05/88)

Jon Bennett comments:

> The "Orwellian" observation you made is frightening.  If the hypertext that 
> you envisioned (Lib. of Congress sized) existed, it would be easy for the 
> "system" to own it, and control its contents.  

"Orwellian" is right.  George Orwell was not talking about the "good ole 
U S of A" but it's getting hard to tell the difference from my side of the 
fence.

After several years of police work/administration and then more years
on the mainframe that runs this particular university, I'M GETTING WORRIED!

The hijinks that can be pulled by anyone who has access to NCIC [The
National Crime Information Center] are frankly terrifying.  What's that? 
oh, only our good, moral, upright, Dudley DoRight type public officials 
have access to it?  Gee, why isn't that more comforting?

An interesting experiment that I've tried:  Do not divulge your Social
Security Number to anyone for one month.  Right, the number on the other
side of that official card which says, "Not legal for identification"
Oh, they took that off of that card?  Isn't that reassurring.......

Richard