I was taught French in elementary school. It didn't take, and as an adult in Lausanne I had to call on Google Translate a lot.
Kids on an extended trip to France reliably learn French. IIRC Papert asked why we can't have a Mathland that works that way, and tried to build one in Logo and the culture around it. This produced at least one awesome, ripping book (Turtle Geometry), some excellent ones like Computer Science Logo Style, and I imagine some local incarnations of Mathland where enough acculturated people got together. I'd guess that schools taking it up too quickly was what smothered it, under school's immense power to turn everything in school into more school. I haven't yet read Papert's later books, though.
We need both let's-make-school-suck-less and ways to learn outside it. I hope someone with experience in these matters will comment.
Kids on an extended trip to France reliably learn French. IIRC Papert asked why we can't have a Mathland that works that way, and tried to build one in Logo and the culture around it. This produced at least one awesome, ripping book (Turtle Geometry), some excellent ones like Computer Science Logo Style, and I imagine some local incarnations of Mathland where enough acculturated people got together. I'd guess that schools taking it up too quickly was what smothered it, under school's immense power to turn everything in school into more school. I haven't yet read Papert's later books, though.
We need both let's-make-school-suck-less and ways to learn outside it. I hope someone with experience in these matters will comment.