An inquisitive old fart with a camera
And once again, time for Uruguayan pre-schoolers to dress up as 19th century Chinese peasants (sans chapeaux), while elementary dress up as…as…as something somebody 100 years ago decided would serve social equity by making all students look equally ridiculous?
Dunno. I’m open to suggestions.
And, oh yeah—there, I fixed it.
Some interesting things going on in little Uruguay. A couple of reads:
New York Times: Uruguay Video Game Startups
Uruguay’s One Laptop Per Child Program (thanks Marcos Cristoforo Mercer)
Related: my blog about CIEBAL, Uruguay’s OLPC program
Newcomers from California have posted a blog entry about their experience with rural Uruguayan elementary school. I’ve posted before about the umm, unusual school uniforms here. Here’s the explanation.
“The public school uniform in Uruguay has been like this since the beginning of the century, with every child wearing the white dust cover and the blue bow. The reason for the uniform is to make it almost impossible to make fun or to comment about the quality, level of maintenance, or brand of the clothing underneath. It was a democratic and egalitarian effort to make every child look the same way with non-expensive clothes, and equalize opportunities. That is the spirit even today. The size of the bows, is just a tradition. Private schools do not follow this same tradition, but do each have their own uniforms.”
We absolutely love the tradition. Our kids don’t feel embarrassed wearing them since all the other children wear them. They do take them off as soon as we get home, but it’s nice not to have to worry about what they are going to wear at school.
I highly recommend reading the whole article: Escuela Rural on the Waystages blog (waystages.com/?p=106)
20190709 update: apparently a one-year wonder. This of February 2017 appears to have been their last blog entry, celebrated by their last meaningful Twitter post. Their Youtube channel ended shortly after their arrival in 2016. Their Facebook page went cold in November 2017. Well, best of luck to you wherever you are!
We were at friends’ house when their daughter, now in grade 2 of high school (North American 8th grade) brought out her school-issued laptop. Unlike the kiddy OLPC units that the little fashionistas use – i.e., this:
the high school version is quite a cool little laptop. Whereas she never used the one above, preferring the family’s desktop computer, she loves having her own laptop now. (Who wouldn’t?)
It runs on Ubuntu Linux, and has full access to the universe of open source applications. I haven’t been able to find much info about its specs (and didn’t have my specs along to read much on the small screen), but saw that it had Open Office and WINE installed, amongst many other programs.
For some families, our hosts explained, this is their only computer.
And they are all connected! When one has internet access, so do the others – not necessarily at blazing speed. We had internet problems recently, and could from time to time connect to a signal from a Ciebal laptop nearby, sometimes with internet long enough to check email and a web site or two. Plan Ceibal also provides open internet access points throughout the country. In 2007, Uruguay became the first country to place an order for laptops – 100,000 of them. By now, it’s over half a million. For a country of 3.5 million. Pretty cool.