leap from imitation to invention

Well, the last few posts were quite cantankerous! Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Since my Master's, I've been talking about the cycle of construction and deconstruction. People learn by making, yes, but they also learn by taking apart. They look at examples, copy them, tweak them, in order to understand and make things. Feynman talks about taking radios apart. Programmers find example code online or in reference books and work from there. Writers read other writers. Programmers code and debug and code again. Writers write, edit, rewrite. The process of creation is cyclical.

My unsolved question of the day is how does the leap occur between working from examples to invention? Take poetry for example. Say I'm a teenager who reads a lot of Sylvia Plath. All of my poems are in Plath's style. As I start to read Louise Gluck, my style starts to copy hers. I'm learning about language and poetry through this imitation and also expressing myself. At some point, I start to develop my own style of writing, my voice, through modifying the styles I've been copying. How does this transition happen, and does it always happen?

What happens in the space between imitation and invention?

a response to Alan Kay

In my last post, I was talking about whether a project is "more" constructionist than another. Part of it was tongue in cheek, part of it was to raise the question of who decides? What does it mean? Is "constructionism" a word with meaning, does it have too much history to mean anything, or do people use it to justify absolutely anything? And does that matter? You can be a constructionist without knowing it. You can call a project constructivist even if it isn't. Does the name mean anything?

This post responds to a message sent by Alan Kay to the Squeakland mailing list on February 24, 2004 in response to two people's comments about Squeak and using it in the classroom. Suffice to say, parts of it really bothered me.

First, he recommended a book with the following statement:

"It contains ideas and directions for about a dozen projects that children like to do, are "good" for them epistemologically, and have been thoroughly tested."

Let's take that apart. The book has ideas and directions for about a dozen projects that children like to do and the projects have been thoroughly tested. That sounds okay. Since Alan often references Seymour and goes for constructionist ideas, I'm assuming the book contains a list of project ideas like "make an ecology" and isn't a recipe book for projects and how each project must be implemented (which of course would be an instruction set and not constructive).

The part that troubles me is the middle section. What does it mean for projects to be good for someone epistemologically? Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowing, or a theory of the nature of knowledge. I don't understand what his phrase even means. This bothers me. He is an expert mathematician and computer scientist who is discussing "real math" and "school math," describing the differences, and evaluating projects from that perspective. That's fine. But then he picks up this language, justifying the projects by saying they're good for the kids, like a Squeak Etoys project will build character, but no-- it's good for them epistemologically, which sounds much better than character! Actually, this sounds like meaningless jargon to me, and it makes me nervous that he's using it.

Another excerpt:

"Squeak etoys are in the form of a scriptable multimedia environment, so what gets authored can range from presentations (such as in powerpoint), stories and games (such as in MS Word, Director and Flash), to mathematical and scientific simulations. Each of these can have a little (to a lot) of overlap with various kinds of educational goals (including good ones). This is rather like introducing a word processor into a classroom "plus plus". That is, the authoring system needs to be really open-ended to deal with all of its genre (a word processor in which one could only write stories but not essays about important ideas would be a terrible use of technology).... Children don't know much about writing or math or science, but they do know a lot of stories and games, and a bit about stories and games, so they tend to plunge fearlessly into using a dynamic medium like Squeak etoys to make representations of stories and games of many different kinds. This simply follows previous observations of children with LogoWriter and Hypercard. There is nothing wrong with this, it's an easy way for them to learn the mechanics of using the system, and they can occasionally learn something beyond stories and games (e.g. a little about math) in the process."

I agree that any open and flexible technology can be used trivially or in ways that were not intended. What bothers me from this excerpt is the attitude towards "stories and games" as though they're trivial to create and don't constitute real forms of projects (such as things that include real math) and the hierarchy he creates of projects and technologies with presentations/PowerPoint at the bottom, math & science at the top and stories & games somewhere in the middle. It reminds me of Piaget's scale of concrete to abstract thinking. Didn't Gilligan already debunk that and show there is no hierarchy?

Real math vs. school math is an important point. We want children to understand math principles and not plug numbers into equations mechanically, with no understanding of the whys or hows of it. But why should stories and games justify themselves through math and science? Is there no other real learning? Say that Squeak is a tool for math and science, as Logo is a tool for geometry. Say Squeak is not a tool for expression. Do not trivialize important and meaningful domains because they are not your own.

That said, designing a sophisticated, interesting game requires advanced mathematical and programming skills, both of which Alan seems to value. Many children have played video games and aren't satisfied with designing simplistic games. They push into hard problems in order to program their own, compelling games, including in the Squeak environment. So programming games should fall into the "nontrivial" category, even by the standards presented in this email.

In the excerpt, Alan seems to value the construction of an essay over a story, even though neither is mathematical. In some ways, I understand. An essay is the logical presentation of an argument. It's analytic. But in many ways, a strong essay is simply a well-constructed story. Both show a fluency in writing and expression of ideas; they are completely related.

Telling a story in Squeak is probably quite silly because it is a programming environment. Text fields don't push the capabilities of the tool, and the tool doesn't support much text-editing or typography. When students want to create Squeak stories or games, facilitators may want to push on interactive fiction since the kids are interested in games and stories anyway and the teachers want them to learn "something real."

But this statement is problematic:

"A good project in Squeak etoys is one that first "appeals as art" and then has some serious nontrivial content that has to be worked out to get the whole above threshold. The "serious nontrivial content" could be mathematical, scientific, theatrical, musical, visual, etc., or some mixture."

It completely trivializes art, and tells kids that in order to do something with serious nontrivial content, they have to be tricked into it with the nice facade of "art." It's demeaning to both art and the "nontrivial content." Maybe what needs to follow is a discussion of how "school art" is not "real art" and "real artists" work in deep and meaningful ways that aren't represented in a school's curriculum. Would that help? Because personally, I don't see how expression can possibly be viewed in such a trivial manner.

constructionism and programming

This is changing a little bit from my theme of blogs, roleplaying games, fanfic and craft communties, but ties into some broader research from the group.

The word "constructionism" came from Seymour Papert who was refining Piaget's idea of "constructivism." Broken down, Piaget said that people learn by constructing knowledge. People don't just take information and internalize it, make it an inextricable part of themselves. They make connections to their past experiences and fit new knowledge into an existing context, an existing understanding of the world and how it works. Papert added that this process of construction can be mediated, so for example, someone can make an object and use it for reflection. He believed that the computer could be a powerful medium for this type of expression and reflection and focused on this as research.

Now because Papert was a mathematician and popularized the idea of constructionism with his example of Logo and learning geometry through programming the turtle, many of the examples of constructionism have become synonymous with math and science. This is the avenue that many followed. This should be broadened.

Of course it was only right for Papert to speak from his experience. His ideas were powerful because they stemmed from his rich experiences as a mathematician.

But because Seymour coined the term "constructionism" and talked about it in a particular context, it has stuck and become almost trivialized. Programming in and of itself isn't a constructionist activity. There needs to be a meaningul purpose or project around it. Some code is just annoying and shouldn't be that annoying to write. A problem set from database systems is about as constructive as a set of story problems in math class-- ie, not very. Some programming is extremely constructive-- in writing the program, a person is working through a real problem in a formal language and system. The act of programming clarifies the idea and thought process. Similarly, Legos are construction toys, but if you're just copying a design out of a book and aren't thinking, just acting mechanically, well, that activity isn't so constructive any more.

When art is involved, things get more complicated. At what level is programming useful and at what point is it a hindrance to expression? Creating art takes a certain level of fluency in both the medium and mode of expression. If I want to make a song, I need to have some understanding of an instrument as well as how to make music. If I want to make an interactive poem, I need to understand poetry as well as how to make an animation either through code or in a piece of software. When do you want to use software with predefined tools and when do you want to make your own?

There's a continuum. Making the poem is a constructive activity. Hopefully there's creation and reflection. Programming adds another level of complexity. There's the creation and reflection of the program as well as of the piece. Do we need fluency in one before attempting it in the other?

And is interactive poetry viewed as more "constructionist" because there's a computer involved than poetry written in a journal? What is an in-person poetry workshop with no online collaborative space and no interactive pieces? Is it something that has been done for decades and is therefore uninteresting? What about the many different ways that people conduct workshops? Some give assignments, others ask people to come with work and take it from there. Are blog-based RPGs interesting for being an online collaboration, for exemplifying the appropriation of a tool, for representing a new way of telling a story or because kids are writing for themselves and creating communities around writing?

Why is constructionism interesting and what can we add to it and to society by studying it when according to both Piaget and Papert, people learn constructively-- whether they're in an instructionist situation or constructive one. Is it to make learning more efficient? More enjoyable? Both?

These are just questions I'm throwing out, and I think everyone will respond differently.

My answers are that in studying constructionism, I hope to become a better teacher and learner. I want to understand what makes for a compelling and interesting learning situation beyond having a special teacher-- or rather, understand what makes a teacher special. I'm not sure about overthrowing the system of education, but I do believe in setting examples and letting people learn constructively from them.

And as for what is constructionist-- anyone who practices is constructionist-- anyone who creates theories or objects and reflects upon their meaning and crafting. Scientists, engineers, mathematicians, artists and writers are all practicing constructionists, whether they know it or not. They're people who try to understand instead of working mechanically, and in trying to understand, create artifacts of words, equations, maps, models and yes, computer programs.

What makes a text appropriable?

What makes material appropriable? There is a ton of Harry Potter fanfic out there. That makes sense given the sheer numbers of people who read the series. X-Files was huge, but the fanfiction dwindled at a point. Same with Buffy. I've noticed that series in progress are much more compelling than completed series. This is related to Henry Jenkins's observation that people write fanfic because they are both enthusiastic and frustrated. Much of the X-Files fanfic died when in the final episode, Mulder and Scully finally got together. In many ways, it was more interesting for fans to make their own stories about Mulder and Scully than to see how it actually played out. And once it was played out, the fanfic wasn't as compelling because the series had already resolved the issue.

So there has to be a rich world, but gaps in that world where fans can explore and create. It's a context with particular rules-- a starting point. The starting point isn't just having information, though. I've seen RPGs that try to start based on the lives of celebrities like Britney, Justin, etc. These haven't taken off because a certain amount of context is missing. The celebrities also live their own lives, so their daily actions take away a fanfic author's control. The most successful celebrity RPGs I've seen put the celebrities into a particular context, such as if all of them attended a private boarding school or college together. This gives the writers much more freedom because the celebrities have a reason for being in the same space, a certain rule set to follow (school and school type activities) besides freeing these characters from the real people who have their own lives.

So agency is inextricable from this. The fanfic author needs authorial control. When series are completed, it resolves issues that fanfic authors were exploring, taking away their agency to make things happen to characters or between characters, but new books in series provide rich new material and renew interest in fanfic.