XplanaZine

Archimedes said, “Give me (lever and) a place to stand, and I will move the world.” It seems that today’s equivalent dictum could very well be ‘give me an Internet connection and the world will move me.’
As much as I would like to concentrate here on the power of love, which is the first cause underlying the following true story, I will focus more closely on computers and education. Real life has provided a lucid example that illustrates how a computer with an internet connection has become not only a powerful and fundamental learning tool but has partaken in a little girl’s overall motivation to learn. There are many easily discernable motives in our story, all very human and all very touching. However, if it weren’t for the Web, our heroine’s life would have taken a different direction.
This is the story of a four-year-old girl who fell in love with Harry Potter.
Natalie hasn’t gone to school yet, but she has been watching TV and has known how to choose and play her favorite videos for quite some time now. There is no doubt that watching educational programs for kids on TV has contributed to her knowledge of the alphabet. That, and perhaps a few casual reinforcements by her family, must have imprinted the English alphabet in her mind, but there has been no explicit effort to teach her how to read or write. But it didn’t take long for Natalie to realize on her own that the written word is indeed powerful and to capitalize on her burning desire to make it part of her life.
The first extraordinary occurrence happened when observation led her to a new realization that the Internet is a gateway to the world. I have no way of knowing what her exact perception of the Web is, or how it affects her most fundamental concepts about the world. But she seems to perceive an extra dimension of interconnectedness among people and things. It is a dimension that those of us who grew up in a pre-Web era have not experienced as such. We may have added it as a layer in our concepts and in our lives, but we don’t exactly perceive it as an extra dimension since we lack the appropriate engrams.
In Natalie’s mind there are concepts, causal chains and associations some of which are not equally obvious to adults. For example, searching the web for information or for hard to find items is as obvious to her as getting videos from the video store or groceries from the grocery store. Using the Web has become a natural, self-evident activity and doesn’t require the use of any extra gray cells, as Hercule Poirot would have put it. She may not be able to drive to the store on her own, but she has no problem running a search on the Web! In a sense, the rest of the world is closer to her than her neighborhood grocery store, or video store. She learned how ebay works with minimal instruction. Amazingly, the first time she tried it on her own she typed in the search field the name of one of her favorite characters and then started scanning through the results for that rare find. This is truly amazing because she wasn’t supposed to know how to read or write. And yet she called forth every bit of knowledge she had, she unearthed and used every relevant experience stored in her limited repertoire and she was indeed rewarded with more confidence in herself. And as her confidence increased so did her ability and her appetite to learn and grow as a person.
This was how Natalie discovered new ways of being! But Natalie loves Harry Potter and she believes she found a place to send him fan email. (Yes, she has her own computer and an email address.) Her need to reach out to the object of her affection motivated her to learn almost completely on her own how to read and write within days! She knew she could do it and she started learning how to spell and type, both in one shot. Of course, she is not willing to be limited now and she’s asking everyone about the right spelling of more difficult words. However, she reads very well and she is now almost an expert Web surfer. She runs her own searches, plays online games, and absorbs a great deal of new information every day. Natalie isn’t only learning, she has also learned how to learn. She is self motivated and she has developed new strategies on how to seek out and use the information she needs while being open to novel things she hasn’t thought about. Her exponential growth endowed her with skills that she applies in other areas. Now she knows how to prioritize and plan out her day all by herself. And she is only a preschooler!
There is no doubt Natalie is an extraordinary girl. Her story reveals a lot about her uniqueness, but it also reveals a lot about human nature and the good a computer and the Internet can do. How much of her intelligence, self-motivation, determination, or learning ability would have been expressed at this young age if she had no Internet access?
Children are motivated to learn how to speak in order to communicate with those in physical proximity. It is a spontaneous process and part of the natural human development. Well, it looks like reading and writing can become equally spontaneous for kids as soon as they realize they can connect with others who are not physically present but who are as real and as important to them. Today’s kids have opportunities that didn’t exist before. The World Wide Web is not only a blessed “extra” we can add to our experiences. For children, it has become a lever within. It is truly World Wide, so their perceptions of the world and of themselves are not the same as in past generations. New abilities are surfacing and we must make room for them to grow freely. Humanity is evolving from within, starting from its own heart. The human heart, like Natalie’s heart, that loves to grow, loves life and loves others is showing the way. Now, more than ever, humanity has the chance to shine even stronger and brighter than before. Our job is to be very observant, recognize the changes, allow them, and be flexible enough to assist them on their own terms.
Thank you Natalie for showing the way, for showing us who we are, what we can do, and what we can become!