Talk:Criticism of One Laptop per Child

I'm surprised that there is no pedagogic criticism listed here. That's the reason that India gave for rejecting the project

"Constructionist learning is clearly a very progressive pedagogical foundation for OLPC, but to present it as the right way, the most effective way to learn, is a hegemonic imposition of moral proportions. To insist on constructionism is to insist that, "education means making creators. . . . You have to make inventors, innovators—not conformists," as Piaget is quoted in Conversations with Jean Piaget (Bringuier, Jean Claude, 1980, p.132). And since most of the people contributing to this project are from societies, cultures, or at least educational systems that value this individualist, entrepeneurial, non-conformist esprit, we don't question that it is universally good, and we don't look for the good in traditionally conformist, communitarian cultures. Thus there is an underlying, unstated goal to OLPC, that is probably subconscious to most of the developers and contributors: To produce geniuses. This is not necessarily bad, obviously; in fact, probably most contributors will think, "of course, that's great!" If we translated the statement to economics though, it would read: "to produce millionaires;" and that is ultimately the motto of capitalism's wealth accumulation ethic.

And many of us may think that is great - I am not saying it is inherently bad, but it is only one system, and the same with OLPC, and the constructonist trajectory it is on now. It is only one system, a system that will facilitate and encourage individual inventiveness, scientific inquiry, and a unique opportunity for kids who are smart to go above and beyond what they might have been able to do before. But it is not necessarily going to change things on a huge scale for the masses of children who may not fit into or be best served by the pedagogical model that OLPC is setting forth. Just as constructionism is a radical response against the fossilization/stagnation of the institution of "the school" or what might be called "neo-scholasticism" (this is not as unfounded an assertion as it might seem when understood that Habermas, upon whose theories much of constructionism is built, was bitterly opposed to Derrida and the deconstructionist "Contemporary Scholastics" as they are sometimes described) we need to open up this space to come up with radical responses to other educational systems and pedagogical theories which are prevalent in the world." from - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Learning_learning" - anon

On the other hand ...
I believe it's sad to see people undermining any educational program, whether for political, philosophical or monetary motives. And this page reflects them all. Of course the scheme is not perfect; but in my view, the benefits far outweigh any conceivable disadvantage. And by denying these to children with no other avenue, it will be the children who pay for adult prejudices, as ever. And that's a shame.

The laptops are just one more opportunity; it's sad to see it dismissed by those who probably already have a laptop or two.Heenan73

Merge
As it stands now this is a POV fork. It's contents can be easily merged in to the One Laptop per Child article and incorporated as appropriate for a better NPOV presentation of the subject. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree. It is not a POV fork, it is material which has been split from the main article because of size. The real issue here is that the One Laptop per Child sections needs to be expanded to summarize the main points in this article. Disagree with merge. -FrankTobia (talk) 01:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It will not be an issue to merge the material back there. As it stands, it does not provide counterpoints needed for NPOV. See WP:POVFORK that states: Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of View. This sub-article is most certainly not NPOV, as it presents one side of the story only: those of its critics. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The solution is to rewrite this article to conform with WP:NPOV. A merge is not the best way to solve POV problems. In fact, this page was already split off from One Laptop per Child (see Talk:One_Laptop_per_Child). So clearly it's not a POV fork, but the main article does need a larger summary of criticisms. -FrankTobia (talk) 17:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no size problem. One Laptop per Child is short.  All this material should be moved back there. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This page was split off from One Laptop per Child due to size concerns, specifically that its size was too large in comparison to the rest of the article. See Talk:One_Laptop_per_Child. -FrankTobia (talk) 17:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ... and in the process this became a POV fork. I will attempt to re-merge and see what we get. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Merging is not a solution to POV. You would poison the OLPC article with it. Feel free to place the NPOV template if you feel it is really POV. The topic is notable enough to deserve an alone-standing Criticism page. There was no complaints with the OLPC split made. I am against merging again. Period.--Kozuch (talk) 19:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no such "poisoning". See how the article looks now: it reads well, it has all competing viewpoints and dos not need a split. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:17, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * May I suggest that you take some time and check my attempt to create an NPOV presentation of this subject? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)