From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Thu Oct 14 1999 - 20:42:12 MDT
"John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>I'm almost embarrassed to point out the obvious but the only way
>to tell a good teacher from a bad one is to see how well they
>teach.
and Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com) responded:
>Maybe hyperlearning is the answer, ...
>...hyperlearning systems are very cost effective as software...
Bingo!
Time to get outside the box. Time to throw away the old system entirely,
and start from scratch with the new information technologies. The old
system is flat out obsolete. It warehouses students, it indoctrinates them
for service to the dominant elites, it bores them into clone-like
obedience, and it channels vast sums of money into the coffers of the
curriculum publishers and educational bureaucracy. It has become an
economic and political sinkhole serving--quite naturally--those who control
it, rather than its ostensible clients, the students and--in the case of
young students--their parents.
Just as we see information technology transform other aspects of human
activity, so must it logically transform education, which is even more
fundamentally an information-intensive activity. The classroom, with its
geographic, temporal, and numerical limitations is a dinosaur.
I had a thermodynamics instructor at SF State--I took thermo three times,
once at Case Tech, once at Berkeley, and once as SF State--who was a
flippin' genius of a teacher. (Thus fate provided me with the unique
opportunity to compare instuctional efficiency at several institutions
whose reputation ranged from world class to undistinguished.) Had his
thermo class been put on CD rom and offered to THE WORLD, in competition
with whoever else thought they had the stuff, not only would he have made a
mint, but the understanding of thermodynamics by anyone on the planet who
needed it as part of their educational repertoir would have been strikingly
enhanced. Make this, across the full range of subjects, the dominant
global paradigm in education and you will have schooling which does not
stand in the way of education.
And it will happen, despite the inertia of the old paradigm,... because it
is finally possible, and because people want it.
Life at school can be filled with wonder, rich in personal growth and
interpersonal experience. The shared human adventure--teacher to student
to student to teacher--will never become obsolete. Nevertheless,
technology drives human progress, and none more forcefully than the
technology of understanding.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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