[MWForum]The Smurf House

[Mikula Family]

I can’t match Harvey’s eloquence but here is how I see teaching Logo.
Today’s children are surrounded by glitzy sights and sounds. There is no
thoughtful cause and effect to creating these dazzling sensory impacts. In
Logo, children have to start with their own idea, plan, apply what they
know, test and either debug or exult. And celebrate they do!! “The turtle”
was the most popular lesson I taught year after year. Students cheered when
they found out that “The Turtle” was the day’s activity. I am retired now
but am home teaching. My 2 students don’t want to leave when the time is up.
Forget the spreadsheets - they want to program the turtle.

Why is this? I believe it is because the child is in charge, can use his own
imagination, enjoys thinking, enjoys the challenge and enjoys finds a
different way to achieve a goal. Knowledge is power.

As a product of my most memorable assignment, I made a book of the hard copy
of every student’s work. I still have that book - 9 years later. I used this
book to inspire students for many years.

6th grade students were assigned to bring a picture of a building that they
would program the turtle to draw. They brought pictures of pyramids, the
Eiffel  Tower, Taj Mahal, castles and local historic buildings. Victor, a
shy, under-achieving boy wanted to make a Smurf House. I showed him how to
use the arc command and went on to help other students. He never asked for
help.

On the last day, each child had a turn entering the one word command to draw
the entire building. When it was Victor’s turn, his program flawlessly drew
the curved shape of the Smurf House, the curved door and windows. It even
painted the house blue! What a fuss the others kids made of Victor.  He
really gained confidence and pride that day. And I was stunned to read his
program. No arc commands! He had meticulously plotted each point on the
curved lines using the setpos command. What a lot of thinking and planning
he put into his work!  What an achievement.

It came as no surprise that Victor became a computer specialist on the
aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.  He wrote letters to the current 5th graders
and encouraged them to work hard - especially on “The Turtle.”

Did I mention that a laminated copy of Victor’s Smurf House became the cover
of our most memorable book?

Now for the down side. We, too, like Gary, had to raise student test scores
in spelling, math, language arts. (This is why I suggested that MicroWorlds
include a spell checker.) There was not enough time in the school year to do
a good job of teaching Logo. If I taught it at all, the projects were taken
directly from the required classroom curriculum. (Which is OK but kind of
limiting.) But in my opinion, the most powerful teaching tool has been put
on the back burner. Hurrah for home schools!

Kate Mikula
Oakley, California