flâneur

The Primer isn’t a viable enabling environment

notes.andymatuschak.org · 340 words · saved by 2 readers

Many people are excited about implementing The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer in real life. Unfortunately, the The Primer is fundamentally an educational game, so it’s not a viable Enabling environment for the same reasons that Educational games are a doomed approach to creating enabling environments—plus a few more.

(This turned into a full essay here. These notes are now pretty outdated.) Many people are excited about implementing The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer in real life. Unfortunately, the The Primer is fundamentally an educational game, so it’s not a viable Enabling environment for the same reasons that Educational games are a doomed approach to creating enabling environments—plus a few more. Enabling environments’ activities directly serve an intrinsically meaningful purpose, but The Primer’s activities are only intrinsically meaningful to Nell because her life is impoverished. The…

saved by

related reading