WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.279 So if you're joining us today, you are probably 00:00:02.279 --> 00:00:04.419 looking for those, you know, those really great 00:00:04.419 --> 00:00:06.459 aha moments without getting totally bogged down 00:00:06.459 --> 00:00:08.859 in jargon. Right, absolutely. And today we are 00:00:08.859 --> 00:00:11.640 doing a deep dive into a really fascinating piece 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:14.980 of history. We're looking at this January 2024 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:18.039 article by educator Gary Ackerman. Yeah, from 00:00:18.039 --> 00:00:20.960 his site, hackscience .education. Exactly. It's 00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:24.199 called Computers Arrive in Schools. And our mission 00:00:24.199 --> 00:00:27.719 today is to essentially explore this crazy chaotic 00:00:27.719 --> 00:00:31.699 window in the early 1980s when technology first 00:00:31.699 --> 00:00:33.960 hit the classroom. It was a massive paradigm 00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:36.979 shift. It totally was. And we want to look at 00:00:36.979 --> 00:00:40.140 how our most educated predictions about the future, 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:42.619 like the things the experts swore would happen 00:00:42.619 --> 00:00:45.000 were just completely flipped upside down. Yeah. 00:00:45.640 --> 00:00:48.000 The hubris of that era is just fascinating. We 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:50.159 actually dig into the historical record. Right. 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:52.039 Because to understand the shock of it all, we 00:00:52.039 --> 00:00:53.679 kind of had to look at the landscape just before 00:00:53.679 --> 00:00:57.460 that flip happened. Exactly. So. Throughout the 00:00:57.460 --> 00:01:00.539 1970s, computing was strictly for hobbyists. 00:01:00.619 --> 00:01:03.640 I mean, it required highly specialized knowledge, 00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.959 a really high pain tolerance for like soldering 00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:10.480 your own components and deep pockets. These machines 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:12.099 were completely marginalized. They weren't in 00:01:12.099 --> 00:01:16.239 normal homes. But then 1981 fundamentally altered 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:19.500 the trajectory. 1981, that was the magic here. 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:22.519 It really was. because that was the year personal 00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:25.219 computers finally dropped below the $1 ,000 mark. 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.060 Which is huge. I mean, that economic barrier 00:01:28.060 --> 00:01:31.019 breaking completely changes the psychology of 00:01:31.019 --> 00:01:33.099 the machine. Absolutely. It wasn't just some, 00:01:33.099 --> 00:01:35.659 you know, corporate asset hidden away in a university 00:01:35.659 --> 00:01:38.120 basement anymore. It suddenly became a household 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:40.340 appliance. Right. The hardware was suddenly just 00:01:40.340 --> 00:01:42.560 sitting on desks in teenagers' bedrooms. It's 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:44.700 right there next to their posters and comic books. 00:01:44.739 --> 00:01:47.000 Yeah. And so you have these amateur enthusiasts 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.420 and specifically children. getting their hands 00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:50.980 on the technology. And they were just diving 00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:53.420 in. They were. They were writing their own programs 00:01:53.420 --> 00:01:56.000 purely to satisfy their own curiosities, just 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:57.480 just seeing what the machine could be forced 00:01:57.480 --> 00:02:00.620 to do. Which is such a shift. The tech was still 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:03.620 viewed as a fringe element by society at large, 00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:06.700 but the access had basically democratized overnight. 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:09.680 Exactly. So we have this land state in 1981. 00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:11.860 The machines are arriving in homes. Kids are 00:02:11.860 --> 00:02:14.520 tinkering for hours on end. And the educational 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:18.210 establishment is. They're watching this happen. 00:02:18.370 --> 00:02:19.830 And trying to figure out how to harness it for 00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:22.669 schools. Right. And Ackerman highlights this 00:02:22.669 --> 00:02:25.389 one guy, a statistician at Stanford University 00:02:25.389 --> 00:02:28.169 named Joseph Deacon. Yeah, Deacon is a really 00:02:28.169 --> 00:02:30.409 interesting figure in all of this. He is. Because 00:02:30.409 --> 00:02:33.330 he got his first computer training way back in 00:02:33.330 --> 00:02:36.229 1964. So he had been around these machines since 00:02:36.229 --> 00:02:38.729 they literally took up entire rooms. Right. He 00:02:38.729 --> 00:02:41.110 had this really deep historical understanding 00:02:41.110 --> 00:02:44.259 of computing's potential. And Deakin became this 00:02:44.259 --> 00:02:47.120 major advocate for using computers in schools. 00:02:47.219 --> 00:02:49.819 He was heavily predicting that the coming decades 00:02:49.819 --> 00:02:52.460 would see individualized, decentralized teaching. 00:02:52.599 --> 00:02:55.300 Delivered entirely through IT. And he wrote this 00:02:55.300 --> 00:02:58.379 book in 1981 called The Electronic Cottage. And 00:02:58.379 --> 00:03:01.139 there's this quote that is just it's mind bending 00:03:01.139 --> 00:03:03.800 to read today. It really is. He was visualizing 00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:06.500 this decentralized future of learning. And he 00:03:06.500 --> 00:03:09.460 wrote, How much better to be free to roam about 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:11.599 at will and speak the language with teachers 00:03:11.599 --> 00:03:14.400 as natives to assist you. What's fascinating 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:17.949 here is how incredibly jarring. that terminology 00:03:17.949 --> 00:03:20.789 is to a modern ear. Oh, completely backward. 00:03:20.990 --> 00:03:24.090 Right, because Deacon explicitly called the teachers 00:03:24.090 --> 00:03:27.870 the natives. Which is wild. It is. For decades 00:03:27.870 --> 00:03:31.330 now, we've used the term digital native exclusively 00:03:31.330 --> 00:03:33.930 to describe the younger generation. Yeah, the 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:36.469 kids who grew up with iPads. Right. And we use 00:03:36.469 --> 00:03:39.210 digital immigrant to describe the older generation 00:03:39.210 --> 00:03:41.169 who are, you know, just trying to adapt to these 00:03:41.169 --> 00:03:43.909 tools later in life. But in 1981, Deacon assumed 00:03:43.909 --> 00:03:46.349 the exact opposite. You really did. OK, let's 00:03:46.349 --> 00:03:48.530 unpack this because this is a profound cognitive 00:03:48.530 --> 00:03:51.530 blind spot on a societal level. Why would a Stanford 00:03:51.530 --> 00:03:53.949 statistician assume the adults would naturally 00:03:53.949 --> 00:03:56.789 master an entirely new technology first? Well, 00:03:56.789 --> 00:03:59.990 because up until that specific moment in history, 00:04:00.430 --> 00:04:03.129 adults were the undeniable masters of the dominant 00:04:03.129 --> 00:04:06.180 information technology, which was Brent. Exactly. 00:04:06.580 --> 00:04:09.259 Print. Teachers had spent their entire lives 00:04:09.259 --> 00:04:12.520 navigating textbooks, encyclopedias, physical 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:14.860 archives, card catalogs. Oh, that's dope. Yeah. 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:17.620 And the widespread assumption was that the intellectual 00:04:17.620 --> 00:04:21.339 ability to process complex information in a print 00:04:21.339 --> 00:04:24.220 format would just automatically map onto the 00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:26.959 ability to write code. Or navigate a digital 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:29.139 interface. Right. They thought the skills were 00:04:29.139 --> 00:04:31.250 perfectly transferable. That is just, it's like 00:04:31.250 --> 00:04:34.329 assuming an adult who is a world -class classical 00:04:34.329 --> 00:04:37.629 composer would automatically be a genius at jazz 00:04:37.629 --> 00:04:40.370 improvisation just because, well, they both involve 00:04:40.370 --> 00:04:43.230 music. Oh, that's a perfect analogy. Right, because 00:04:43.230 --> 00:04:45.230 classical music is all about reading the notes 00:04:45.230 --> 00:04:47.829 on a page and executing a pre -written linear 00:04:47.829 --> 00:04:50.069 structure perfectly. Very structured. But jazz 00:04:50.069 --> 00:04:53.290 is about responding in real time. It's experimenting, 00:04:53.569 --> 00:04:55.529 breaking the rules, just seeing what sounds good 00:04:55.529 --> 00:04:58.819 in the moment. And that distinction between structured 00:04:58.819 --> 00:05:02.500 execution and real -time experimentation gets 00:05:02.500 --> 00:05:04.500 right to the heart of the cognitive friction 00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:06.839 that happened in the 80s. Because print is the 00:05:06.839 --> 00:05:09.459 classical music in this scenario. Exactly. Print 00:05:09.459 --> 00:05:12.860 is linear, it's passive, and it is permanent. 00:05:13.279 --> 00:05:15.300 You start at the top of the page, you read down 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:17.800 to the bottom, and you absolutely cannot alter 00:05:17.800 --> 00:05:19.980 the text. That was what it is. But early computing 00:05:19.980 --> 00:05:23.160 was nonlinear. It was highly interactive and 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:25.879 completely malleable. You type a command, the 00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:29.139 machine reacts, you adjust. Right. It requires 00:05:29.139 --> 00:05:31.660 an entirely different cognitive approach. So 00:05:31.660 --> 00:05:34.000 the adults were basically flexing their print 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:36.199 muscles. They were sitting there trying to read 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:38.920 the manual from front to back. before they would 00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:41.180 even dare touch the keyboard. Terrified of breaking 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:43.220 it. While the kids were just mashing buttons 00:05:43.220 --> 00:05:45.439 to see what the screen would do, they were using 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:48.040 that experimental jazz muscle. And because of 00:05:48.040 --> 00:05:50.899 that, they mastered the machines infinitely faster. 00:05:51.139 --> 00:05:54.019 It's amazing. Ackerman actually identifies this 00:05:54.019 --> 00:05:58.399 dynamic as the first true technology skill inversion 00:05:58.399 --> 00:06:01.259 in human history. Wow, the first ever. Yeah, 00:06:01.279 --> 00:06:03.339 think about the grand timeline of civilization 00:06:03.339 --> 00:06:06.730 for a second. Agriculture. blacksmithing, the 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:09.370 printing press, the industrial revolution. The 00:06:09.370 --> 00:06:13.129 elders always knew best. Exactly. In every single 00:06:13.129 --> 00:06:16.389 previous era, expertise resided with the older 00:06:16.389 --> 00:06:18.850 generation and it was systematically handed down 00:06:18.850 --> 00:06:21.360 to the youth. But the personal computer inverted 00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:24.279 that power dynamic entirely. Completely flipped 00:06:24.279 --> 00:06:27.420 it. Younger generations became far more experienced 00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:30.060 and far more confident with a dominant technology 00:06:30.060 --> 00:06:33.420 than their elders. So just imagine the psychological 00:06:33.420 --> 00:06:36.459 friction in an early 80s classroom. Oh, it must 00:06:36.459 --> 00:06:38.759 have been intense. You're the teacher, right? 00:06:38.860 --> 00:06:41.220 You are the ultimate authority in the room, the 00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:43.980 native speaker of knowledge. And suddenly, some 00:06:43.980 --> 00:06:46.480 12 -year -old is correcting your syntax on a 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:48.600 glowing green screen. Yeah, that had to hurt. 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:51.040 If the kids were running circles around the adults, 00:06:51.259 --> 00:06:53.480 the adults must have completely panicked. Oh, 00:06:53.480 --> 00:06:56.600 they did. So how did the adult world try to regain 00:06:56.600 --> 00:06:59.860 control of a technology that they clearly didn't 00:06:59.860 --> 00:07:02.420 fundamentally understand? Well, they desperately 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:05.060 sought out a translator. The adult world needed 00:07:05.060 --> 00:07:07.500 someone to explain this new reality, and not 00:07:07.500 --> 00:07:10.060 in technical terms, but in conceptual ones. They 00:07:10.060 --> 00:07:12.199 needed it dumbed down, or at least translated. 00:07:12.459 --> 00:07:15.060 Right. And the person they overwhelmingly turned 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:19.439 to was the novelist Michael Crichton. Wait, here's 00:07:19.439 --> 00:07:22.199 where it gets really interesting. Michael Crichton. 00:07:22.459 --> 00:07:25.100 Yes. Like, the Jurassic Park Michael Crichton. 00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:29.220 The very same. In 1983, so long before he wrote 00:07:29.220 --> 00:07:32.100 Jurassic Park or Westworld, he published a non 00:07:32.100 --> 00:07:35.170 -fiction book called Electronic Life. Why on 00:07:35.170 --> 00:07:38.350 Earth is a sci -fi novelist the go -to IT guy 00:07:38.350 --> 00:07:41.149 for the 1980s? It's wild, right? Were the actual 00:07:41.149 --> 00:07:43.850 engineers just so buried in jargon that they 00:07:43.850 --> 00:07:46.649 couldn't explain their own creations to the general 00:07:46.649 --> 00:07:49.149 public? Essentially, yes. Creighton actually 00:07:49.149 --> 00:07:51.230 wrote the book because his friends and his acquaintances 00:07:51.230 --> 00:07:53.610 were constantly pestering him for advice. Like, 00:07:53.730 --> 00:07:56.689 hey, Michael, which computer should I buy? Exactly. 00:07:56.769 --> 00:07:59.310 Yeah. They were asking for advice on buying and 00:07:59.310 --> 00:08:01.589 setting up their machines. But they weren't asking 00:08:01.589 --> 00:08:03.670 him how a motherboard functioned. No, they didn't 00:08:03.670 --> 00:08:05.410 care about the hardware. Right, they were asking 00:08:05.410 --> 00:08:07.529 him how to think about this alien object sitting 00:08:07.529 --> 00:08:09.990 in their living room. OK, that makes sense, because 00:08:09.990 --> 00:08:12.529 Creighton understood narrative. Yes, he knew 00:08:12.529 --> 00:08:15.470 how to explain the architecture of complex systems 00:08:15.470 --> 00:08:18.389 to lay people. He was translating the mindset 00:08:18.389 --> 00:08:21.529 of computing. He was. He was introducing the 00:08:21.529 --> 00:08:24.269 public to the vocabulary and the ideas that were 00:08:24.269 --> 00:08:26.829 about to become completely embedded in everyday 00:08:26.829 --> 00:08:29.550 life. So he wasn't giving them a schematic. He 00:08:29.550 --> 00:08:32.789 was giving them a philosophy. That's a great 00:08:32.789 --> 00:08:35.710 way to phrase it. And his fundamental philosophy 00:08:35.710 --> 00:08:38.730 was that computers held just this boundless potential 00:08:38.730 --> 00:08:41.330 for encouraging human creativity. Because it 00:08:41.330 --> 00:08:44.429 was a blank slate. Exactly. He observed this 00:08:44.429 --> 00:08:47.350 beautiful fleeting window of opportunity that 00:08:47.350 --> 00:08:49.610 always accompanies the birth of a new medium. 00:08:49.909 --> 00:08:52.539 Before the rules get locked in. Right. He actually 00:08:52.539 --> 00:08:54.940 wrote, one of the great delights of any new technology 00:08:54.940 --> 00:08:58.019 is that it is, for a while, free. Free! I love 00:08:58.019 --> 00:09:00.159 that. Meaning there is no correct way to use 00:09:00.159 --> 00:09:02.659 it yet. Exactly. It's that messy experimental 00:09:02.659 --> 00:09:05.379 phase where the amateur enthusiasts and the kids 00:09:05.379 --> 00:09:07.600 in their bedrooms are just thriving because they 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:09.700 aren't afraid of breaking the rules. But Creighton 00:09:09.700 --> 00:09:12.639 also saw a massive societal backlash forming 00:09:12.639 --> 00:09:16.700 against that exact freedom. Of course, the adults 00:09:16.700 --> 00:09:19.980 striking back. Yes. He introduced this really 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:23.299 profound warning about a group he dubbed the 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:25.980 Computer Calvinists. Computer Calvinists, that 00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:28.460 is such a vivid label. Isn't it? When I hear 00:09:28.460 --> 00:09:31.960 Calvinism, I instantly think of like strict dogma, 00:09:32.100 --> 00:09:34.820 predestination, no dancing. Right, no fun allowed. 00:09:35.059 --> 00:09:38.399 Yeah, just this deeply rigid framework where 00:09:38.779 --> 00:09:42.100 Stepping out of line is essentially a moral failing. 00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:45.440 And Kraken intended every single ounce of that 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.429 metaphor. Wow. Even in these early days of public 00:09:48.429 --> 00:09:50.769 computing, he warned that the Calvinists were 00:09:50.769 --> 00:09:53.190 already hard at work trying to shut down the 00:09:53.190 --> 00:09:55.710 unregulated space. What was their ultimate goal? 00:09:56.129 --> 00:09:58.629 To ensure that computer use became highly standardized. 00:09:58.889 --> 00:10:02.330 They wanted to impose strict manuals, rigid rules, 00:10:02.570 --> 00:10:04.889 protocols. They were effectively taking a tool 00:10:04.889 --> 00:10:07.850 of limitless creation and trapping it inside 00:10:07.850 --> 00:10:09.909 a controlled framework. Because they were terrified 00:10:09.909 --> 00:10:12.230 of the chaos of the free phase. Completely terrified. 00:10:12.330 --> 00:10:14.529 So we basically have a massive collision course 00:10:14.529 --> 00:10:17.370 set up here. We really do. On one side, you have 00:10:17.370 --> 00:10:20.450 Joseph Deacon's vision of students just free 00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:23.149 -roaming through information technology, totally 00:10:23.149 --> 00:10:25.750 fueled by this new technology skill inversion. 00:10:25.929 --> 00:10:28.330 The kids with the power. Right. And on the other 00:10:28.330 --> 00:10:30.950 side, you have Creighton's computer Calvinists, 00:10:31.309 --> 00:10:33.429 the adults who desperately want to put a fence 00:10:33.429 --> 00:10:36.230 around the whole property just to regain control. 00:10:36.389 --> 00:10:39.929 To make it behave like print. Exactly. So when 00:10:39.929 --> 00:10:42.809 those two forces actually meet in the hallways 00:10:42.809 --> 00:10:45.009 of the American school system, what happens? 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:47.580 Well, Creighton issued a really poignant plea 00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:50.100 about that exact intersection. OK. He wrote, 00:10:50.519 --> 00:10:53.519 personally, I hope that for once in the 20th 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:56.919 century, a technology stays free, because the 00:10:56.919 --> 00:10:59.340 rules makers always manage to kill the essence 00:10:59.340 --> 00:11:02.259 while tidying up the details. Wow. Kill the essence 00:11:02.259 --> 00:11:04.500 while tidying up the details. Yeah. And he finished 00:11:04.500 --> 00:11:07.259 by saying, dogma replaces direct experience, 00:11:07.620 --> 00:11:10.539 and ritual becomes reality. Dogma replaces direct 00:11:10.539 --> 00:11:12.559 experience. Man, we all know how this played 00:11:12.559 --> 00:11:15.460 out, don't we? We do. Ackerman's article argues 00:11:15.460 --> 00:11:18.200 that the computer Calvinists absolutely won the 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:21.259 war in schools. Hands down. They took this dynamic 00:11:21.259 --> 00:11:24.100 nonlinear machine and they essentially forced 00:11:24.100 --> 00:11:27.659 it to behave like a 19th century textbook. If 00:11:27.659 --> 00:11:30.200 we connect this to the bigger picture, you see 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:33.340 that instead of that decentralized, highly creative 00:11:33.340 --> 00:11:36.480 exploration led by the students' natural curiosities. 00:11:36.500 --> 00:11:39.159 Which is what Deacon wanted. Right. Instead of 00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:42.779 that, the educational bureaucracy did what bureaucracies 00:11:42.779 --> 00:11:44.899 do. They standardized it. They standardized. 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:48.139 The historical record shows this incredibly rapid 00:11:48.139 --> 00:11:51.000 deployment of the traditional computer lab. Oh, 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:53.200 man, the computer lab. Let's just picture that 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:55.919 1980s computer lab for a second. The beige boxes 00:11:55.919 --> 00:11:58.720 everywhere. Exactly. It wasn't a hub of hacking 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:01.279 or coding or building virtual worlds. Not at 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:04.659 all. It was 30 kids sitting in front of 30 identical 00:12:04.659 --> 00:12:07.320 monitors working through the exact same step 00:12:07.320 --> 00:12:10.740 -by -step worksheet to format a Word document. 00:12:10.570 --> 00:12:14.009 The instruction was literally, do not click file 00:12:14.009 --> 00:12:16.210 until the teacher tells you to click file. It 00:12:16.210 --> 00:12:19.370 was excruciating. They applied the linear passive 00:12:19.370 --> 00:12:22.809 rules of print to a completely non -linear dynamic 00:12:22.809 --> 00:12:24.990 medium. They basically stripped away the direct 00:12:24.990 --> 00:12:27.919 experience of trial and error. And they replaced 00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:31.000 it with the sterile ritual of multiple -choice 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.700 quizzes about keyboard shortcuts. Oh, I remember 00:12:33.700 --> 00:12:36.059 those quizzes. Right. They taught the software 00:12:36.059 --> 00:12:39.240 the exact same way you would teach a rigid grammar 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.000 lesson. So what does this all mean? I kind of 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:44.360 have to push back on this narrative just a little 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:47.019 bit here. OK, go for it. Because we are painting 00:12:47.019 --> 00:12:50.080 the Calvinists as these sort of villains who 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:52.820 actively crushed creativity. But wasn't that 00:12:52.820 --> 00:12:55.470 standardization an absolute necessity? In what 00:12:55.470 --> 00:12:57.269 sense? Well, think about the sheer logistics 00:12:57.269 --> 00:12:59.870 of running a school system. You have a teacher 00:12:59.870 --> 00:13:03.049 who is a digital immigrant tasked with managing 00:13:03.049 --> 00:13:06.190 30 chaotic kids in a room with tens of thousands 00:13:06.190 --> 00:13:09.490 of dollars worth of fragile, expensive equipment. 00:13:09.570 --> 00:13:12.029 Very true. You can't just unleash them to free 00:13:12.029 --> 00:13:15.049 roam. You need a rigid structure just to keep 00:13:15.049 --> 00:13:17.309 the hardware from getting destroyed, right? Fair 00:13:17.309 --> 00:13:20.379 point. And you need measurable outcomes to actually 00:13:20.379 --> 00:13:22.860 give out grades at the end of the semester. The 00:13:22.860 --> 00:13:25.480 logistical defense of the Calvinists is incredibly 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:29.080 robust. I mean, how else do you ensure a baseline 00:13:29.080 --> 00:13:31.879 of digital literacy for every single student 00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:34.399 rather than just catering to the few kids who 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:37.139 are naturally inclined to pinker? Exactly. The 00:13:37.139 --> 00:13:39.399 school system is an industrial model, and it 00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:43.220 is designed specifically for scale. And you cannot 00:13:43.220 --> 00:13:46.740 scale chaos. No, you can't. The Calvinists would 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:49.039 absolutely argue that they saved the computer 00:13:49.039 --> 00:13:51.899 from being a useless, expensive toy and turned 00:13:51.899 --> 00:13:53.960 it into a functional utility for the masses. 00:13:54.409 --> 00:13:57.129 But in scaling it, they killed the essence. They 00:13:57.129 --> 00:13:59.389 did? They turned a blank canvas into a typewriter. 00:13:59.549 --> 00:14:01.669 Yes. I mean, if the only way to make a technology 00:14:01.669 --> 00:14:04.250 function at scale is to strip away the very thing 00:14:04.250 --> 00:14:06.090 that makes it revolutionary in the first place, 00:14:06.529 --> 00:14:08.809 maybe the 19th century industrial school model 00:14:08.809 --> 00:14:10.990 was just fundamentally incompatible with the 00:14:10.990 --> 00:14:13.730 21st century tool. That tension between scale 00:14:13.730 --> 00:14:16.950 and essence is the core tragedy that Ackerman 00:14:16.950 --> 00:14:18.809 highlights in his article. Because the adults 00:14:18.809 --> 00:14:21.370 just couldn't see it. Right. Because of the technology 00:14:21.370 --> 00:14:24.830 skill inversion, The adult educators lacked the 00:14:24.830 --> 00:14:27.690 intuition to even realize what they were destroying. 00:14:27.950 --> 00:14:29.750 Because they were looking at it through the lens 00:14:29.750 --> 00:14:33.570 of print. Exactly. They genuinely believed that 00:14:33.570 --> 00:14:36.210 teaching a student how to follow a rigid software 00:14:36.210 --> 00:14:39.340 tutorial was computer literacy. They thought 00:14:39.340 --> 00:14:40.980 they were doing the right thing. They didn't 00:14:40.980 --> 00:14:43.500 realize they were teaching paint by numbers instead 00:14:43.500 --> 00:14:46.320 of teaching actual art. Wow, which brings this 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:48.779 entire historical conflict right to your desk 00:14:48.779 --> 00:14:51.200 today. It really does. I mean, think about your 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:53.899 own workplace habits for a second. When you are 00:14:53.899 --> 00:14:56.580 handed a new piece of software, a new app or 00:14:56.580 --> 00:15:00.039 a new digital tool at work, what is your immediate 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:03.529 instinct? Are you a Calvinist? Right. Do you 00:15:03.529 --> 00:15:07.490 channel your inner computer Calvinist just frantically 00:15:07.490 --> 00:15:10.110 searching for the official tutorial, terrified 00:15:10.110 --> 00:15:11.809 of clicking the wrong button because you might 00:15:11.809 --> 00:15:14.309 break the rules? Or do you allow yourself the 00:15:14.309 --> 00:15:16.389 direct experience? Do you just start mashing 00:15:16.389 --> 00:15:20.389 buttons? Do you explore the messy free phase 00:15:20.389 --> 00:15:23.009 to discover what the tool can actually do before 00:15:23.009 --> 00:15:25.610 the dogma sets in? It's a critical question for 00:15:25.610 --> 00:15:29.490 how we adapt to change. And it leads to a pretty 00:15:29.490 --> 00:15:31.389 staggering thought about our immediate future. 00:15:31.629 --> 00:15:34.309 Yeah. This entire deep dive has been predicated 00:15:34.309 --> 00:15:37.509 on the technology skill inversion of the PC era, 00:15:37.730 --> 00:15:40.169 right? Where the youth had this massive cognitive 00:15:40.169 --> 00:15:42.049 head start. The kids knew more than the adults. 00:15:42.429 --> 00:15:44.990 Exactly. But look at the frontiers we are standing 00:15:44.990 --> 00:15:48.470 on right now. Highly advanced generative artificial 00:15:48.470 --> 00:15:52.429 intelligence. Oh yeah. Or near future brain computer 00:15:52.429 --> 00:15:55.389 interfaces. These are tools that do not operate 00:15:55.389 --> 00:15:58.320 on the logic of print. or even on the logic of 00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:00.419 traditional software. Right, the mechanisms are 00:16:00.419 --> 00:16:02.700 entirely different. So this raises an important 00:16:02.700 --> 00:16:06.440 question. What happens to our schools, our institutions, 00:16:06.620 --> 00:16:09.580 and our societal power dynamics when a paradigm 00:16:09.580 --> 00:16:13.019 shift is so sudden and so alien that neither 00:16:13.019 --> 00:16:15.980 generation has a head start? Oh, wow. We are 00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:19.000 entering an era where the concept of a digital 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:22.429 native might just cease to exist. We are all 00:16:22.429 --> 00:16:24.950 arriving on the shore at the exact same time. 00:16:25.330 --> 00:16:27.769 Universally immigrants to a new world. Exactly. 00:16:28.049 --> 00:16:30.149 Man, if the educational system fractured this 00:16:30.149 --> 00:16:32.009 badly when the kids knew the rules better than 00:16:32.009 --> 00:16:33.950 the adults. Imagine the whiplash when nobody 00:16:33.950 --> 00:16:36.169 knows the rules. And the Calvinists haven't even 00:16:36.169 --> 00:16:38.649 had time to draft a manual yet. We might just 00:16:38.649 --> 00:16:40.909 be forced to survive the free phase together. 00:16:41.110 --> 00:16:44.730 That is something to really chew on. Well, thank 00:16:44.730 --> 00:16:47.389 you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning 00:16:47.389 --> 00:16:49.269 the structure around you. Give yourself permission 00:16:49.269 --> 00:16:51.570 to explore the free phase of your own tools, 00:16:52.029 --> 00:16:53.570 and we will catch you next time.