By the time I got to school, I had already read a couple hundred books. I knew in the first grade that they were lying to me because I had already been exposed to other points of view. School is basically about one point of view -- the one the teacher has or the textbooks have. They don't like the idea of having different points of view, so it was a battle. Of course I would pipe up with my five-year-old voice.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the limitations of traditional education in presenting only one perspective.
Alan Kay reflects on his experiences in the education system, emphasizing that he encountered diverse viewpoints through reading before even entering school. This exposure led him to recognize that formal education often restricts learning to a singular perspective, which conflicts with the richness of knowledge gained through varied sources. His assertion illustrates the importance of embracing multiple viewpoints in the pursuit of true understanding and knowledge.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of diverse opinions in learning.
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.
The greatest single programming language ever designed
Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.
If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we're all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.
We need a pedagogy free from fear and focused on the magic of children's innate quest for information and understanding.
I read Carver. Julio Cortazar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me.
I would never suggest to anyone that they drop school for chess. First of all even if you can make it in chess, your social skills need to be developed there.
I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.
Working with great writers can be humbling and frightening, but it can also change you for good, forever.
If you're teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are.
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