Month: January 2012
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Efficiency as a basic educational principle
It occurred to me that there is a simple pedagogical principle that explains the appeal of very early learning, homeschooling, and certain (not all) traditional methods of education, as well as why certain other methods of education strike me as a waste of time. I hereby dub the following the principle of individual efficiency: Seize…
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What I dislike about experts: dogmatism
Since I started Citizendium, which invites experts to be “village elders wandering the bazaar” of an otherwise egalitarian wiki, and am well-known for criticizing Wikipedia’s often-hostile stance toward experts, I am sometimes held up as an example of someone who places too much trust in experts. In fact, I have quite a bit less trust…
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Excelsior College announces “Bachelor’s Degree for Under $10,000” program
Excelsior College, formerly known as Regents College, is a fully accredited New York state private institution that grants degrees based on exam scores and portfolio evaluation. As such, it is a natural fit to students who want to study using free online resources and who cannot afford to attend college (or more precisely, who can’t afford…
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The future, according to Kathy Sierra
Kathy Sierra blogged earlier today six years ago (!) that “The future is not in learning”; the future lies, instead, in “unlearning.” This sounds awfully like another example of the geek anti-intellectualism that I love to hate; we’ll see about that. Since that’s how the post comes across–beginning with the title–it has already gotten a lot of…
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Update about the boys, part 1 – January 2012
It’s been a long time since I gave an update about what I’m doing with the boys, who are now 5.5 years (H.) and 15 months (E.). I guess the biggest news about H. is that he’s now writing regularly and doing quite well with that, but we’ve made progress and made minor adjustments with…