Newsletter Issue

Spark of Light

by Paula Zerkle

Teaching, learning, playing, creating ... everything is interwoven. The spark of light in a child's mind is there at the very beginning. It is our job, as the caretakers of these bright lights, to kindle that spark and fan them, and watch them grow. This spark wants to grow naturally, strongly, because it knows its purpose: to love, to watch, to learn, to know, to grow.

The thing that weakens that spark is fear. Fear keeps us trying to do what we think other people want. Fear keeps us distant from our lives, locked in life-long jobs or relationships that may not be feeding us. Fear keeps us from trusting ourselves. Fear holds us back from truly knowing and loving ourselves. Fear keeps us from opening our hearts completely to our children.

And that fear becomes hidden, down secretly in our hearts. We cover it up with experience, knowledge, ego, and "expertise," but our children are able to see it anyway, and from it they learn how to be fearful themselves. That's when the spark starts to dwindle, to lose its bright shine for the future.

Now fear is a powerful force in the world. It may make some of us stronger, quicker, smarter, meaner, but - for certain - it can destroy us. A child needs to know how to handle fear, to be able to love and accept the world as it: a crazy, dangerous, loving, terrifying, anxious, hopeful, violent, hilarious, gentle, peaceful place, in which to grow. And if she understands this, she will know her part in helping to change it.

So, while we teach her, let's be playful, fun, loving, humorous, kind, (somewhat) logical, and free. Let her blossom.

Astronomical Potential

by C.T. Kormann

The classroom is lit only by the mid-day sun, which angles in through the glassless windows of wrought-iron bars. Outside is a grove of plantain trees. The heat is heavy, the air dusty. Rubén, a skinny 11-year-old, is clicking and dragging his miniature mouse across the arm of his battered wood desk-chair. His toes just barely touch the floor and his saucer-shaped eyes are locked on the glowing screen of his XO laptop, where he has, on a whim, created the solar system.

It was my third day in Nicaragua teaching 21 students, (six girls, fifteen boys, ages eight to 12), how to use Etoys—a program that, for starters, lets kids create animated storybooks. This was the first time I'd been involved in a Waveplace pilot, and I started the experience with some privately held skepticism. The elementary school, Cayetano Estrella Diaz, located in the color-splashed village of Buenos Aires, has no electricity, holes in its corrugated tin roof, and walls made of cardboard covered Styrofoam. Books are few and almost only for teachers' use. And until we—Mary Scotti, Bill Stelzer and I—had arrived, almost all these kids had never used a computer before in their lives. Shouldn't books and other fundamentals for students be the priority? How can these computers be integrated into the school's day-to-day classes once we (the Americans who had brought them down) leave? Will computers really improve these kids' educations—when it seemed to me that there were other, more pressing needs?

Within three days, I realized how myopic I'd been as I watched the kids respond to their XOs and begin to learn Etoys. Watching little Rubén draw his solar system after discovering the circle tool in Etoys was one of countless instances that crystallized my conviction in the project's worth. The kids were sparked to use their imaginations and explore in the XOs' whole new realm of possibilities. Consequently, they were eager (a few even greedy), to learn whatever I had to teach in the next lesson so that they could explore and create even more.

The real daily thrill was seeing the shy kids, or the less outwardly enthusiastic, accidentally reveal a smile, or a proud blush, as they showed off their work. The girls, far outnumbered, were all at first timid, and so, a bit slower to catch some concepts. But within days, they cracked their own shells. Julissa, for example, moved from the back of class to the front, by her own volition, just to be closer to the lesson action. Deysi started creating intricate swing set drawings for her story—worthy of a good graphic designer's praise. Katerin, by the end of the two weeks, could not help but shout out answers to my questions. The laptops work as an equalizer.

I saw the kids take ownership over what they were learning. They were empowered. They became more and more comfortable navigating, exploring and creating on a machine that two weeks prior had been, to them, as alien as chicharrones con pelo (pork rinds with hair—a Nicaraguan snack) might be in the States. Best of all, I saw them jump out of their seats to help one another—to show someone else how to do what they had already figured out. There were momentary flashes when I felt that we the teachers could fade into the walls and the kids would fly along without us—one would figure something out, teach the others, who would figure something else out and so on.

My other concerns were squashed as I watched the kids use the XOs during their free time after class. One, Luis, discovered some e-books already scanned into the XO memory and read away the hour. The XO can hold up to 200 e-books! A library contained in one little green whirling box! I found Adán and Benito, on different days, quietly tapping away little poems in the writing program. (Adán's began: "Mi madre es una rosa," or "My mother is a rose.") Almost all the kids loved creating music and recording sound in a program called TamTamMini. Others were fascinated by the archive of pictures from places around the globe, or by Wikipedia (the sort of permanent, not online version). And of course, the camera was endlessly entertaining. I happily watched as some students started taking their laptops outside for more artful shots of a mango tree or the turquoise school, experimenting with the light and frame.

Regarding complete integration of the laptops once the Nicaragua pilot ends, I found the local teachers—Roxanna, David and Geovany—to be as excited about learning the XOs and Etoys as the kids. I'm certain that they would continue to teach with them in groundbreaking ways. My hope now is that the school can obtain a security box in order to keep the laptops and that more laptops can be sent to this town—for greater or complete saturation. They really could make a world—hey, even a solar system—of difference.

Russell's Sea Stories

by Russell Van Riper

As this is written, I am at work. Sailing, four days at sea, the last leg up the Indian River. We are delivering a boat and its owner to a new home port. Nearly four weeks have passed since the end of the Immokalee pilot. When first handed this little computer with great ambition, I asked myself, "How does one introduce computing to children who have never been exposed, without losing childhood to the screen?"

I have never been enamored with technology for tech's sake. I see far too many people passively using technology as an escape from the truth of the world. With truly mixed feelings about the impact of media saturation on culture and individuals, I picked up the XO. The first click of the antenna latch had the sound of Pandora's box. Now, surveying myself for the overall impact of those ten weeks, my original question comes to mind. I should be engrossed in this moment of sea and wind, new friends and adventure, yet I am pecking away at a keyboard. But wait, on deck I feel the breeze no less, the water rushing by the rail is no less exhilarating. Having a medium upon which to project my introspection is making my thoughts more clear, more focused, observation more keen for detail and striving for expression. Can it be that this bit of high tech is enhancing an experience, rather than distracting from it?

At the beginning of the Immokalee pilot, Jesus was far more interested in his cellphone ring tones than the laptop he had been given. While this was not the norm in the class and certainly not what would be found in Port-au-Prince or Nicaragua, it illustrates a point: the lights and delights of technology can be infinitely distracting in the face of immediate experience. (while typing this sentence, I just missed a shark jump and role out of the water while striking a fish ... infinite distraction in the face of immediate experience. ... that shark was infinitely distracting in the middle of a writing experience.)

What drew me into the teaching of XO and Etoys was not the gee-wiz laptop. It is the fact that the computer is being taught as a tool of expression. Expression requires active engagement with the outer world. With the proper mentoring, the computer becomes a tool untethered and free to be used anywhere, anytime, and by anyone. A tool as untethered and unlimited as childhood itself ... being sent to children for whom the ideal of childhood is a flashing dream in the face of poverty, limited opportunity, and often social dysfunction.

By the end of the Waveplace pilot in Immokalee, Jesus was one of our most engaged students. Somewhere in the third week of classes, Jesus realized he could make his laptop do things his cell phone could never do. Ring tones are someone else's product that can be appropriated for the appearance of individuality. His Etoy story was his own. He was proud of it and proud to share the skills he mastered with his classmates as they were proud and happy about their own work.

The XO has been a catalyst for my own creativity. I saw this process in the instructors as well as the students. Ten weeks shifted some of my cultural cynicism, away from the technology, onto the producers of media content. I wonder if the students have been impacted in their own way as much as I have.