Chapter 2
Illustration by Haylee Bolinger

Girl In Wave : Wave in Girl

Kathleen Ann Goonan

How would our world change if everyone could read and write? In this vision of the future, dazzling human enhancements like gills and wings are less transformative than universal literacy and an education system that is tuned to the neurological and cognitive needs of each individual learner. Grokking – a link that allows the user to share the memories and emotional journeys of another person – allows us to journey back to the moment when nanotechnology, learning theory, and neuroscience aligned to conquer illiteracy.

Kathleen Ann Goonan is a science fiction author, educator, and critic. Her debut novel, Queen City Jazz (1994), was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and her novel In War Times (2007) won the John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. She is a visiting professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

How can technology change the way we teach and learn?

Join the conversation

  • Response to “Girl in Wave : Wave in Girl”

    Written by Erin Walker
    Erin Walker, Assistant Professor, School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University

    I am working on a project to assess learning using brain data, and this story does prompt me to further consider a natural extension of that line of research – can the brain be manipulated to accelerate learning?

  • Mad Scientist Island

    It’d be nice to start with a clean slate, without the pressure to make everything make work with existing systems, conform to building codes, or have to make money or sense this year. But I think that such a place, if it existed, would need oversight.

    – Michael Burnam-Fink

    mburnamf
    Read the conversation >>

  • An Interview with Shelley Trammell: On Dyslexia

    An Education News interview with Shelley Trammell, author of Living “Lexi”: A Walk in the Life of a Dyslexic (2008), about the experience of raising and advocating for her dyslexic daughter. Living “Lexi” was an important source of information for “Girl in Wave : Wave in Girl.”

 

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