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From: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Against educational fads
Message-ID: <40001@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 12 Dec 90 04:53:32 GMT
References: <1990Dec5.005509.11049@massey.ac.nz> <15447@cs.utexas.edu> <39897@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <27743@cs.yale.edu>
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Reply-To: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
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In article <27743@cs.yale.edu> horne-scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) writes:
>In article <39897@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes:
>
> ... past context trimmed ...
>
>Even the most simple-minded educrat will probably agree that such skills as
>reading and writing are essential.  Typing is also very important, and I
>certainly encourage people to learn to type, but it's not fundamental to life
>in today's society.  If you think that typing is more important than writing,
>well, I suppose we never shall share pedagogical ideas.
>
><Lighten up Russ, the worlds has lots of room for opinion.
>
>Opinion?  Indeed, there are those who are of the opinion that typing and
>word-processing skills are more important than writing skills.  Russell and
>I won't agree with these people on much.  Russell's article stated the
>(correct) opinion that writing skills are more important to most than typing
>skills.
>
>The world can use only so many secretaries but needs plenty of good writers.
>
>					--Scott

Am I a simple minded 'educrat', I hope not.

Am I a simple minded 'father' maybe. I'm in close charge of two kids who have
been using word processors since they were 3 -- Macs of course. My observations
are not disembodied theory. I wake them every morning. 

Was this discussion about writing and typing? No. I merely claim that you can
teach the skill of writing better with a word processor than you can with a
pencil because the response time is better and it is a more convivial tool. I
also claim that you can't teach the skill of writing without a tool. Minimum
tool is language but since writing tends to be 'put down somewhere' I assume
that we need a 'put er downer':pen, brush, chisel, word processor. I have never
figured out what tool Russell is using. If he would name his tool then maybe we
could then assume certain givens and look at the differences which will be the
tools of choice.

I think that if Scott is going to post, he needs to read the entire discussion
to get a drift for where it came from and where it might be going

The response about secretaries is possibly sexist and at the least degrading.
Why would you assume secretaries aren't writers. My guess is that they are much
better than average... because they know how to use, and do use the best 
writing tool ever invented:-)

--Thom Gillespie