The primary question Seth Godin invites his listeners to contemplate in the TED talk above is "What is school for?" He paints a great picture of how, historically, the primary focus of public school was to teach obedience. We sit in straight rows, we answer the teacher in unison when she says "Good morning class" and what was created at high school graduation was interchangeable people to use in the factories of the industrial age. Thinking of school in that way makes me cringe! Have I been duped by my public education upbringing?
Godin goes on to talk about our current culture and he says "As a culture we say, the only thing that is important is interesting, then we spend all of our money and time to teach people how to not make things interesting." This point resonated with me because we are a culture that is only captivated by spectacular ideas, videos, pictures or whatever else the media can throw at us. How can we create classrooms that teach kids how to explore and investigate what excites them, and then create something that passion. Even Albert Einstein said "the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
One idea I liked from Godin's TED talk was the idea of instruction at home and then exploration of the material in the classroom with an adult in the room to help when students run into roadblocks. This is like the flipped classroom model that I think could be possible, but comes with problems such as assuming that kids have Internet access or that they are actually going to watch the lecture at home. I agree with Godin when he points out that there are skilled presenters that give lectures online of pretty much any subject, so why recreate every lecture as a teacher? I hope to experiment with this idea when I get my own class.
Godin goes on to talk about our current culture and he says "As a culture we say, the only thing that is important is interesting, then we spend all of our money and time to teach people how to not make things interesting." This point resonated with me because we are a culture that is only captivated by spectacular ideas, videos, pictures or whatever else the media can throw at us. How can we create classrooms that teach kids how to explore and investigate what excites them, and then create something that passion. Even Albert Einstein said "the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
One idea I liked from Godin's TED talk was the idea of instruction at home and then exploration of the material in the classroom with an adult in the room to help when students run into roadblocks. This is like the flipped classroom model that I think could be possible, but comes with problems such as assuming that kids have Internet access or that they are actually going to watch the lecture at home. I agree with Godin when he points out that there are skilled presenters that give lectures online of pretty much any subject, so why recreate every lecture as a teacher? I hope to experiment with this idea when I get my own class.