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The Computer Clubhouse: Technological Fluency in the Inner City {#8ea2 .graf .graf—h3 .graf—leading .graf—title name=“8ea2”}
电脑俱乐部：技术在城市中流淌 {#5bf6 .graf .graf—h4 .graf-after—h3 .graf—subtitle name=“5bf6”}
Four core principles that guided the development of the Clubhouse. These principles span multiple dimensions: social, pedagogical, technological, epistemological, and emotional. In creating new learning environments, all of these dimensions are important.
四个核心原则指引着俱乐部的发展。这些原则跨越多个维度：社交的、教学法的、技术的、认知论的和情绪的。在创建新的学习环境时，所有的这些维度都很重要。 ::: ::: :::
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Principle 1: Support Learning through Design Experiences 通过体验设计{.markup—anchor .markup—h4-anchor data-href=“https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/體驗設計” rel=“noopener” target=“_blank”}来进行学习 {#171f .graf .graf—h4 .graf—leading name=“171f”}
Activities at the Clubhouse vary widely, from constructing and controlling LEGO robots to orchestrating virtual dancers. But these varied activities are based on a common framework: engaging youth in learning through design.
In recent years, a growing number of researchers and educators have argued that design projects provide rich opportunities for learning (e.g., Harel, 1991; Papert, 1993; Lehrer, 1993; Soloway, Guzdial, & Hay, 1994). There are many reasons for this interest in design-based learning:
• Design activities engage youth as active participants, giving them a greater sense of control (and responsibility) over the learning process, in contrast to traditional school activities in which teachers aim to “transmit” new information to the students.
• Design activities encourage creative problem-solving, avoiding the right/wrong dichotomy prevalent in most school math and science activities, suggesting instead that multiple strategies and solutions are possible.
• Design activities can facilitate personal connections to knowledge, since designers often develop a special sense of ownership (and caring) for the products (and ideas) that they design.
• Design activities are often interdisciplinary, bringing together concepts from the arts, math, and sciences.
• Design activities promote a sense of audience, encouraging youth to consider how other people will use and react to the products they create.
• Design activities provide a context for reflection and discussion, enabling youth to gain a deeper understanding of the ideas underlying hands-on activities.
This emphasis on design activities is part of a broader educational philosophy known as constructionism (Papert, 1993). Constructionism is based on two types of “construction.” First, it asserts that learning is an active process, in which people actively construct knowledge from their experiences in the world. People don’t get ideas; they make them. (This idea is based on the constructivist theories of Jean Piaget.) To this, constructionism adds the idea that people construct new knowledge with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in constructing personally-meaningful products. They might be constructing sand castles, LEGO machines, or computer programs. What’s important is that they are actively engaged in creating something that is meaningful to themselves or to others around them.
At the Clubhouse, construction takes many forms. Rather than playing computer games, Clubhouse participants create their own computer games. And rather than just “surfing” on the Internet’s World Wide Web, participants make waves: they create their own multimedia Web pages, such as the Clubhouse’s Online Art Gallery. ::: ::: :::
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Principle 2: Help Youth Build on their Own Interests 在年轻人兴趣的基础上帮助他们 {#df47 .graf .graf—h4 .graf—leading name=“df47”}
In schools of education, the focus is usually on methods of teaching, not motivations for learning. Many courses emphasize how and what teachers should teach, but seldom examine why their students might want to learn. When the issue of motivation is addressed, the emphasis is often on extrinsic motivators and incentives, such as grades and prizes based on performance.
Yet if you look outside of school, you can find many examples of people learning --- in fact, learning exceptionally well --- without explicit “rewards.” Youth who seem to have short attention spans in school often display great concentration on projects that they are truly interested in. They might spend hours learning to play the guitar or play basketball. Clearly, youth interests are a great untapped resource. As Roger Schank has written: “An interest is a terrible thing to waste” (Schank, 1994).
When youth care about what they are working on, the dynamic of teaching changes. Rather than being “pushed” to learn, youth work on their own, and seek out ideas and advice. Youth are not only more motivated but they also develop deeper understandings and richer connections to knowledge. At first, some youth interests might seem to be trivial or shallow, but youth can build up large networks of knowledge related to their interests. Pursuing any topic in depth can lead to connections to other subjects and disciplines. The educational challenge is to find ways to help youth make those connections and develop them more fully. For example, an interest in riding a bicycle can lead to investigations of gearing, the physics of balancing, the evolution of vehicles over time, or the environmental effects of different transportation modes.
The Clubhouse is designed to support youth in developing their interests. While youth from middle-class households generally have many opportunities to build on their interests (music lessons, specialty camps, and so on), the target audience of the Clubhouse has few such opportunities. For most Clubhouse participants, there are no other constructive after-school options. And many do not even have a clear sense of their interests, let alone how to build on them.
Clubhouse participants are encouraged to make their own choices. Just coming to the Clubhouse involves a choice: all of the youth at the Clubhouse have chosen to be there, and they can come and go as they please. Once inside the Clubhouse, participants continually confront choices on what to do, how to do it, and whom to work with. The Clubhouse helps these youth gain experience with self-directed learning, helping them recognize, trust, develop, and deepen their own interests and talents.
Helping youth develop their interests is not just a matter of letting them do what they want. Young people must be given the freedom to follow their fantasies but also the support to make those fantasies come to life. On the walls, shelves, and hard drives of the Clubhouse, there is a large collection of sample projects, designed to provide participants with a sense of the possible and with multiple entry points for getting started. In one corner of the Clubhouse is a library of books, magazines, and manuals filled with more project ideas (and a sofa to make reading more comfortable). Many youth begin by mimicking a sample project, then work on variations on the theme, and soon develop their own personal path, stemming from their personal interests.
This approach works only if the environment supports a great diversity of possible projects and paths. The computer plays a key role here. The computer is a type of “universal machine,” supporting design projects in many different domains: music, art, science, math. At any time, a pair of youth might be using a computer to create a graphic animation, while at the next computer another participant might be using a similar computer to control a robotic construction. ::: ::: :::
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::: section-content ::: {.section-inner .sectionLayout—insetColumn} Principle 3: Cultivate “Emergent Community” 培养新兴社群
How do people become fluent in a natural language? It is now common wisdom that people learn French much better by living in Paris than by taking French classes in school (Papert, 1980). Many American students take several years of French class in high school, but still can’t communicate fluently in the language. The language is learned best by living in the culture, by going to the store to buy a baguette, by joking with the vendor who sells Le Monde, by overhearing conversations in the café, by interacting with people who know and care about the language.
For young people to become technologically fluent, they need a similar type of immersion. They need to live in a “digital community,” interacting not only with technological equipment, but with people who know how to explore, experiment, and express themselves with the technology.
To foster this type of community, the Computer Clubhouse includes a culturally-diverse team of adult mentors --- professionals and college students in art, music, science, and technology. Mentors act as coaches, catalysts, and consultants, bringing new project ideas to the Clubhouse. Most mentors volunteer their time. On a typical day, there are two or three mentors at the Clubhouse. For example, engineers might be working on robotics projects with Clubhouse participants, artists on graphics and animation projects, programmers on interactive games. For youth who have never interacted with an adult involved in academic or professional careers, this opportunity is pivotal to envisioning themselves following similar career paths.
In this way, the Clubhouse deals with the “access issue” at a deeper level. In addition to access to new technology, inner-city youth need access to people using technology in interesting ways. This type of access is not possible in a classroom with 30 children and a single teacher. The Clubhouse takes advantage of an untapped local resource, providing a new way for people in the community to share their skills with local youth.
By involving mentors, the Clubhouse provides inner-city youth with a rare opportunity to see adults working on projects. Mentors do not simply provide “support” or “help”; many work on their own projects and encourage Clubhouse youth to join in. John Holt argued that children learn best from adults who are working on things that they themselves care about. As Holt wrote: “I’m not going to take up painting in the hope that, seeing me, children will get interested in painting. Let people who already like to paint, paint where children can see them” (Holt, 1977).
At the Clubhouse, youth also get a chance to see adults learning. In today’s rapidly-changing society, perhaps the most important skill of all is the ability to learn new things. It might seem obvious that youth, in order to become good learners, should observe adults learning. But that is rarely the case in schools. Teachers often avoid situations where students will see them learning: they don’t want students to see their lack of knowledge. At the Clubhouse, youth get to see adults in the act of learning. For some Clubhouse participants, it is quite a shock. Several of them were startled one day when a Clubhouse staff member, after debugging a tricky programming problem, exclaimed: “I just learned something!”
Projects at the Clubhouse are not a fixed entity; they grow and evolve over time. A mentor might start with one idea, a few youth will join for a while, then a few others will start working on a related project. For example, two graduate students from Boston University decided to start a new robotics project at the Clubhouse. For several days, they worked on their own; none of the youth seemed particularly interested. But as the project began to take shape, a few youth took notice. One decided to build a new structure to fit on top of the robot, another saw the project as an opportunity to learn about programming. After a month, there was a small team of people working on several robots. Some youth were integrally involved, working on the project every day. Others chipped in from time to time, moving in and out of the project team. The process allowed different youth to contribute to different degrees, at different times --- a process that some researchers call “legitimate peripheral participation” (Lave and Wenger, 1991). ::: ::: :::
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Principle 4: Create an Environment of Respect and Trust 创造一个尊重和信任的环境 {#46a1 .graf .graf—h4 .graf—leading name=“46a1”}
When visitors walk into the Clubhouse, they are often amazed at the artistic creations and the technical abilities of Clubhouse participants. But just as often, they are struck by the way Clubhouse youth interact with one another. Indeed, the Clubhouse approach puts a high priority on developing a culture of respect and trust. These values not only make the Clubhouse an inviting place to spend time, but they are essential for enabling Clubhouse youth to try out new ideas, take risks, follow their interests, and develop fluency with new technologies.
There are many dimensions to “respect” at the Clubhouse: respect for people, respect for ideas, respect for the tools and equipment. Mentors and staff set the tone by treating Clubhouse youth with respect. Right from the start, participants are given access to expensive equipment and encouraged to develop their own ideas. “You mean I can use this?” is a common question for youth to ask when they first visit the Clubhouse and find out about the resources and options available to them.
Even with all these options, youth won’t take advantage of the opportunities unless they feel “safe” to try out new ideas. In many settings, youth are reluctant to do so, for fear of being judged or even ridiculed. At the Clubhouse, the goal is to make participants feel safe to experiment and explore. No one gets criticized for mistakes or “silly” ideas.
（Schön D A, Sanyal B, Mitchell W J. The Computer Clubhouse: Technological Fluency in the Inner City{.markup—anchor .markup—p-anchor data-href=“http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Clubhouse/Clubhouse.htm” rel=“noopener” target=“_blank”}[C]// MIT Press, 1998:263—285.） ::: ::: :::