View source for An Interview with Dr. Alan Kay (1991)

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<subtitle id='00:00:00'> in the factory approach to learning</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:04'>amidst of our schools and is like how dumb can people be and the fears and the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:14'>self-confidence creativity and motivation are very high in the open</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:18'>school yes a lot of computers make it make the difference or is it the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:23'>teachers and the computers or what what is what is the difference I don't think the difference has anything to do with</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:27'>the computers at all because the the open school is a great school before we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:31'>ever showed up that's why we picked it when I walked in through the door I was</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:35'>only there for a couple of minutes when I thought oh boy we could really do this great experiment there and the principal</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:41'>was all for it and our main job of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:45'>putting the computers in was that line in the Hippocratic oath that says above</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:49'>all do no harm I mean this was a great school we just wanted to slide the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:54'>computers in so that they were just another Crayola so there's no big deal</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:00:58'>about you about using them and we learned how over a couple of years to do</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:03'>that and no I don't think the I think the computer computers are just another</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:08'>rich medium in this school of full of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:12'>different kinds of media that the children have to work with and that's the way it should be</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:17'>there's there's just no question about the extraordinary advantages helps gains</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:24'>that the computers offer when used correctly mm-hmm are there any losses we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:29'>mentioned harm what what oh yeah well I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:33'>think one of the ones is to assign it a significance it doesn't have like this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:37'>is going to save us from our problems or we can delegate things to it that we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:43'>don't have to do I mean there's a million things like that of thinking of the computer is some sort of magic</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:48'>ointment that we can put on super aiding wounds and that doesn't work at all I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:01:53'>think another one is that the the kinds</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:00'>of ways computers can be used because it can take on so many forms you can easily</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:07'>pick one that will actually atrophy</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:11'>something that was growing in the students that's true you can do that with</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:15'>anything but the computer is particularly complex that way and the problem with putting a prosthetic limb</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:20'>on a healthy limb is the healthy limb atrophies right because the prosthetic</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:24'>is there and you can do it with instruments like the piano as well piano</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:28'>removes you from the necessity from wearing about pitch and so your if you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:34'>assign all the responsibilities of pitch to the piano and the student doesn't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:38'>sing inside then they can play notes but they won't be playing music and the same</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:43'>thing is true the with the computer you and I believe that you have to have a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:48'>fairly well fleshed out psychological model admittedly</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:52'>there aren't any really great ones the one I've used for many years as Bruner's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:02:57'>and it still works well and and his ideas is was derived from Piaget but a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:03'>different way of looking at it that we have different ways in our mind of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:07'>dealing with the world we have in an active way that's kinesthetic</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:12'>proprioceptive we have a visual iconic</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:16'>way of dealing with the world we have a symbolic way of dealing with the world</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:20'>and the reason McDonald's doesn't run a print ad saying if you eat McDonald's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:25'>hamburgers you'll become a better looking person is that the part of our</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:29'>mind that deals with language we'll find that to be absurd but the part of our</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:33'>mind that deals with images will perfectly accept really good-looking</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:37'>people eating McDonald's hamburgers and one of the things you can do with</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:41'>computers it's very popular is making images appear on the screen and the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:46'>thing that you have to be careful with about images is because they're so appealing because you don't have to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:51'>learn how to see them in the way that you have to learn to deal with symbols</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:03:55'>you can try and load too much of the the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:01'>idea structures that you're trying to get across to the kids onto images where the images can't hold them images are</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:07'>concrete and ideas are abstract whereas a friend of mine once said images beg to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:12'>be recognized and words beg to be understood and if you understand that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:17'>distinction between the two of them then you can use the computer wisely but if</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:21'>you don't then the tendency is to make it into a kind of an interactive television which i think is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:26'>quite quite possibly the worst thing we could ever do in this century I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:30'>mentioned Piaget mmm-hmm there's no doubt about the ability of the new</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:35'>technology to help an increase cognitive thinking what about emotional</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:40'>development yeah well I think the way we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:45'>do emotional development in the open school and in fact one of the things</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:49'>that we helped with when we went into the school is to restore all of the arts curriculum that proposition 13 took away</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:55'>and this is because even though we are one of the kids to do things that were</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:04:59'>like science most legislators don't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:03'>understand that science is an art in</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:07'>other words most scientists do what they do because they have an aesthetic involvement in the stuff that they're</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:12'>dealing with if you don't have an aesthetic involvement with the stuff you're not in the space that the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:17'>scientist is in and so removing all aesthetic things as a way of saving</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:22'>money and saying we're the reason we're doing this we're going to emphasize technology and the science is throwing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:28'>out the baby with the bathwater the aesthetics of doing things on computers</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:32'>are pretty rudimentary and so we prepare</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:37'>in this in art school one of the things we did is we set up a very strong music program where there's a long-standing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:46'>aesthetic foundation things that everybody is familiar with that the kids</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:50'>can get rich on and one of the things that we've discovered over the years is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:05:55'>that there's a very strong correlation between music and computers most</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:00'>computer scientists are musicians of one kind or another antal musicians tend to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:05'>make awfully good computer people when they get interested in it and the reason</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:10'>is is that a lot of the thought processes that you do in one are similar in the other and we computer scientists</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:17'>find that the aesthetics of music good to a try and apply across to what it is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:22'>that we're doing on the computer when we ask are we doing anything beautiful here</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:26'>one of your goals is to use the new technology to amplify aesthetic</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:32'>sensibility mm-hmm you just talk about that alone well I think all technology</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:38'>is a kind of an ample as I said like the piano you have to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:43'>have a musical impulse inside of the human to amplify or nothing happens and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:48'>I think that the other side of the amplifier is the prosthetic where are</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:54'>you costs things that and again by realizing the distinction like the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:06:59'>distinction between the image and the word and what each is good for you can</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:04'>get the aesthetics magnified so again the musical analogy is I happen to play</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:10'>keyboards among other things and I happen to like playing Bach fugues stuff</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:16'>like that like I play pipe organ so I like I play with my feet as well as my hands and one of the things that any</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:22'>organist will tell you is the organ is one of the least expressive of all musical instruments</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:26'>you can't modulate the tone in any way</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:30'>once you've pressed the key down okay on the other hand it has a space that you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:35'>can't do with a human voice which is multi Tom Braille it's big polyphonic it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:42'>has all of these other dimensions and if you can sing inside while you're doing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:46'>it you can sometimes fake the audience into thinking that the organ is a musical instrument</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:51'>so if you do both of those things then you get something for it if you don't do</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:07:55'>both of those things then the organ actually is deader than listening to aquire and I think that's the that's the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:02'>distinction of when you when you want to use technology to amplify something that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:06'>we can perfectly well do ourselves help me understand a student a seven</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:14'>years old eight years old is drawing a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:18'>three-dimensional blue house he struggles he doesn't get the dimension</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:22'>quite right the Blues a little off student B has a computer keyboard it's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:29'>working with the computer draws the basic structure of the house can maybe</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:35'>push something and suddenly there's the three dimensions perfectly done pushes another thing on it's blue mm-hmm</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:42'>to me there's a loss maybe or something or well I think what about the learning</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:47'>yep I mean once it has this to invent the first painting systems at Xerox PARC</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:52'>was wanting people to sketch on a computer not just to draw a crisp drawings because the one of the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:08:58'>complaints we had is that people did all of their design on the backs of envelopes and use the computers for</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:03'>rendering and so we put a lot of effort and the display is today are still not</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:09'>you know go item to workstation to the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:15'>kinds of post-production like the paint box we I think any artists would agree</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:21'>box is in mansions as physical pain but</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:26'>yeah in order to get to the you like</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:30'>you're moving stuff around and there's a clothes augment with a material to place</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:42'>the computer you can think of as more of a rendering engine for various kinds of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:49'>things and allows you to explore a different set of dimensions my belief is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:53'>on all of these things again like a musical instrument which can't do all the things the human voice can do what</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:09:58'>you want to do is understand what it can do and what it can't do try and get the value of what it what it can do and try</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:04'>and minimize the tendency of assuming that it's the whole world</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:16'>now we're going to the generic okay this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:20'>is very helpful thank you what are the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:31'>obstacles to the new technology and how can they be overcome well I think</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:36'>they're not mean there are lots of obstacles to the new technology there</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:40'>are the fact that the technology isn't quite there yet</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:45'>I think it's going to happen before the end of the decade but right now what you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:50'>buy is basically an approximation to what you really want the price is too</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:55'>high even for the approximation they're</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:10:59'>not easy enough to use commensurate with what they give back to you and people</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:04'>are tend to be afraid of them even if they were good just because they're new</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:08'>so those are four obstacles and each one has a different pathway and I think that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:14'>in a sense the approach that Martin Luther took is the is the right one</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:20'>where he wanted people have a personal relationship with God believe that meant</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:25'>that they should read the Bible and he had a choice should he teach everybody in German to read Latin or should he try</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:30'>and invent a German that the Bible could be translated into because German the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:35'>German was 20 or so regional dialects that did not have the philosophical</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:40'>strength to carry what the Bible had and Martin Luther sat down and designed a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:45'>new language the language of the German speak today called Hoch Deutsch and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:49'>translated the Bible into it and it worked and to you know among many things</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:11:56'>you could consider him one of the world's first user interface designers because he did that thing that all</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:01'>interface designers have to do which is to take something in terms that are</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:07'>already familiar to people renders something more profound in those terms</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:12'>with the result that the person comes out of the experience living in a bigger</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:16'>world and they were when they went in that's what we tried to do with the Macintosh and many more essays like that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:22'>are going to have to be done in the next 10 years in order to bring the revolution to drop the other shoe</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:29'>what are the best features of the new technologies and one of the worst I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:34'>think they're the best well I think of the new to me new technology is the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:38'>stuff that's going to happen so the best features of the stuff that's going to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:43'>happen is that it's going to be portable it's going to be connected in a variety</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:49'>of different ways it's going to be something in in which the user gets to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:54'>define a lot of the connections rather than having somebody else do the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:12:58'>definition for them and I think the one</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:02'>of the basic drawbacks of a technology is the thing we always have a technology</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:07'>is the tendency to try and assign it the responsibility for saving us from things</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:11'>we don't want to do ourselves how do you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:15'>see the classroom of the future what would you like to see it well I don't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:19'>see classrooms going away just because I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:23'>believe there's a lot of use in fact you could make the you could say that the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:29'>most important thing about classrooms right now is the socialization stuff</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:34'>because there's not a lot of learning that goes on in most classrooms and I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:38'>think the socialization parts of the classroom stuff are going to be as</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:43'>important as we go into the future but I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:47'>think that to me a good classroom is one that's right okay if you think of it the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:53'>state that the kids are in there like graduate student studying for PhDs</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:13:57'>they're trying to work on things that they don't know about they're trying to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:02'>find them out using they're using sources of knowledge that have been</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:07'>around they're trying to invent things they're doing all the things that people do after they've gone through 16 years</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:12'>of standard schooling so you know to put</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:16'>it in a nutshell why not cut out to 16 years of standard schooling and get on to the good stuff just view the kids as</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:22'>little researchers try and help them do the research and realize that knowledge</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:27'>isn't a fluid that you can transfer from full teacher vessels to empty student</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:31'>vessels what you have instead is a process called learning and that you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:35'>can't teach but you can facilitate the learning of somebody else so when you go</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:40'>from a teacher model to a coach model to a facilitator model</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:44'>to one where you realize that the process in the the learner is the one</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:48'>that's important to fan then you start winning big that's something you do not need any technology at all to do it is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:53'>really a shift in attitude it's a paradigm shift in what you think</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:14:57'>learning is about and what it's for how</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:01'>essential to the well-being of a child is an education in the arts well I don't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:08'>know what education in the arts means but I think for a child to be creative</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:15'>to feel that they are a mover in a shaper I think that's one of the most</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:20'>important things in the life of a child cause it doesn't matter what they want</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:24'>to do later on they need to feel that they're not just a passive receiver of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:29'>somebody else's information they have to move in shape and that's what art is</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:34'>right art is putting your your mark on some medium that can convey a message</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:39'>and usually in a way that's as beautiful or as practical as possible you know the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:46'>Bell Labs motto that they had up for many years was either do something very</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:51'>useful or very beautiful the idea is that anything in between was not that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:15:56'>worthwhile and I think that's an also a definition of art years ago the poet</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:02'>Muriel Rukeyser we were talking about art and children she said in school and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:06'>education she said one of the worst things are the shoulds and the should</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:10'>nots yeah yeah well I think the and that the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:15'>trick in our civilization is one that is founded on technique that was the big</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:21'>change as we as we went went from the the dark ages you know into the Middle</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:26'>Ages and started building cathedrals and then gradually got so we could step back</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:31'>enough from our common sense view of the world to do science and we we suddenly</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:36'>realized that we at there was actually a science of developing technique and it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:42'>spread into the arts as well it became the ability to learn how to paint I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:47'>think one of the biggest hits I ever had</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:51'>was the first time I went to the fec gallery in Florence and we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:16:55'>that they're in an awful lot of really bad paintings done in the Renaissance</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:00'>but that almost anybody who could hold a brush back then had learned how to paint</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:04'>drapes you know it was just something you learned they learned how to decorate</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:09'>space and you only see the really good ones in the art books but in you go to a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:14'>place like that it has ten thousand twenty thousand paintings you see these incredible drawings of drapes and stuff</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:19'>it was a technique and the biggest problem is the technique should be the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:24'>servant of the art and not the master that's what everybody in our</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:28'>civilization who does anything remotely artistic has to battle with over and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:32'>over again every musician if you want to play the great music you have to have a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:37'>ton of technique takes years to do it and you can easily get what is called</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:41'>conservatory disease where your goal now becomes playing Chopin's minor third</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:46'>etudes faster than the guy down the hall all of a sudden where's the music go all</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:51'>right and so that is that to me is the big thing on the other hand I don't want</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:17:56'>to go back from the twentieth century and so I believe that people have to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:00'>develop technique but they have to develop in some sort of context where we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:04'>understand what it's doing what we are doing when we're developing technique</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:08'>we're not doing art when we're doing the technique we're developing a set of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:12'>tools for expressing ourselves and we don't want to get submerged by it do any</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:17'>of the computers synthesizers all of the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:21'>electronic tools that are command now short-circuit some of that just what</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:25'>you're talking about that struggle to get the technique well again it's yeah</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:30'>you that's I mean you can go out and buy</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:34'>a gadget that purports to be a musical instrument and makes something that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:38'>sounds like music but in fact there isn't enough involvement of you in it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:42'>for it to be called a musical instrument it's more like a musical robot okay and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:49'>I'm basically against those because I think that they they do the worst thing</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:18:55'>they give you the form but not the content of doing something neat as I one</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:02'>of the first scientific American articles I wrote we're talking about value systems and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:07'>that with the first children we worked with they even worried about this this</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:13'>is in the 70s and we finally decided that the the ethic was you should</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:18'>automate the fringes of what you're interested in so if you're a player you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:22'>shouldn't automate playing what you should do is automate the instruments</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:26'>the that you you can't get it you know like when I play chamber music and so I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:31'>use a synthesizer so I can have the string parts playing at any speed while</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:36'>I'm learning the piano part and to me that's not a prosthetic because I can't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:41'>get those players every day to come and often I don't get to see him except once</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:46'>a year that I'm going to going to play with and on the other hand if I oughta</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:50'>mated to playing the piano stuff that would where would I be the synthesizer</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:19:55'>stuff is wonderful if you go straight it's terrible if you want to learn about playing unless you're doing it so again</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:00'>it's to me it's it all comes down that you have to have a value system that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:04'>allows you to use this stuff without losing your own soul you know the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:08'>existentialist philosophers say our biggest problem is our civilization got</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:13'>control over the world by alienating ourselves from it that's what you have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:17'>to do in order to do science and technology and it's our lack of groundedness that has caused us to 20th</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:23'>century man to feel that he's lost his soul and the way you get away from that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:28'>is not getting rid of the technology not by becoming a Luddite but saying we</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:33'>among all the things that we are as human beings we are also mammals we have</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:39'>to contact the earth it's not we have to do things with our body or else we're</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:43'>not real we don't feel like we're real anymore and just by sticking with that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:47'>that tells you what you can do with the technology that's going to make you feel good and amplify what you're trying to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:20:52'>do</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:14'>do we kill it one last thing okay you've really you've really covered everything</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:18'>I want one I think that's it just occurred to me yesterday's New York</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:22'>Times reports the tremendous concern of children in the war yeah so of that did</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:27'>you read that thing and certain people came out and children's television workshop said no they're not going to do</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:31'>anything because the parent is much better to talk to a child about this have some do you just want to address it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:36'>because I also heard the Israeli ambassador this morning saying for the first time we're having a war in real</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:42'>time yeah well again it's the I was</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:47'>thinking about it I grew up in World War two and I lived in Australia and we the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:52'>Japanese actually came in and bombed the Harbour Bridge once with a suicide</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:21:56'>submarine while we were living there and we had air raids and stuff like that you</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:01'>know and I hardly remember I have vivid memories of living in Australia but I</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:05'>hardly remember the war and the reason is my parents didn't talk to me that</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:09'>much about it and they listen to the radio after I went to bed and they very</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:13'>correctly realized that that I didn't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:17'>have the scope to deal with what was actually happening and so what they told</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:21'>me about it was just about exactly what I needed to know at that time as my</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:27'>friend Neil postman likes to say on television there are no secrets he wrote</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:31'>a book called the disappearance of childhood which is all about what</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:35'>happens when you can't separate the adult world from the child world and television just absolutely devastates</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:41'>the gap between the two I think it's one of the most harmful and then you know</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:46'>Here I am sitting on television but as Neil likes to say television is at its</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:51'>worst when it's trying to do good because when it's trying to do good it</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:55'>tries to cover important like you're doing right now right but the the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:22:59'>problem is that this isn't the right medium talking-head isn't even close to</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:04'>what I could do with an essay right and that is the thing it's not you can't</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:10'>make television better it's what it is it's all about people and people are</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:14'>watching my haircut as I speak here and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:18'>they're learning something about me but if they want to learn about my ideas they should read something because</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:22'>that's where the ideas are best thought about they can go back over them they</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:26'>can think about then they can argue with them they can do all of these things but</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:30'>they can't do it while they're watching my haircut and I feel exactly the same</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:34'>way about the the way the children are being affected</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:38'>there is the children's television workshop does not i think standing what</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:45'>it does even when it's trying to do good with Sesame Street which i think is not</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:49'>good and they have no understanding whatsoever as to the particular way</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:23:55'>television is treated by parents with regard to their children yeah it's it's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:00'>really a question of turning the thing off then the parents trying to repair</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:05'>something that has been presented to the child with the full fitness and</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:09'>production value that television has I don't think it's a match and that's the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:13'>big one of the biggest problems in schooling today if people turned off the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:17'>damn tube that I mean really turned it off and confined it to something like</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:24'>seeing a movie once a week or something that would do more America than almost</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:28'>anything else if people would have each</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:32'>other turn off the television you wouldn't necessarily have them go over</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:36'>to the computer not monitor no I hope not at all of course was very well</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:43'>illustrate in the research after the Jack Ruby shooting of Oswald and the kid</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:48'>there are surveys ose bolts don't really</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:53'>in a strong way associate playing the</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:24:58'>Royal Television that that I mean there there's several surveys that I've seen</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:04'>that have to do with we verse and about things that they see on television</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:08'>they're deeply disturbing if the percentages are anywhere I don't know</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:14'>whether they're true but there's</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:23'>oh yes I'm sorry freeze-frame zooms back</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:28'>and forth okay and some close-ups from</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:37'>the camera decide to be a good one for a</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:25:43'>burp right</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:41'>okay just terrific just a tiny bit of</subtitle>
<subtitle id='00:26:45'>room tone</subtitle>
<subtitle id='1621'>a long time </subtitle>