The Death of Education or the Dawn of Learning

By on May 15, 2008 in Education, Video with 15 Comments

This video is circling around the ed-tech conversation space — but everyone should watch and learn from it (5 1/2 minutes!)

I’ve said for awhile, our kids aren’t living with "short" attention spans, but with "quick" attention spans.  Some classrooms are stagnating (boring!) the learning process by stubborn 20th century practices.  Some businesses are guilty of this too.  The first step towards change is taking the step. 


UPDATE (5/20): As of right now, the original uploiad of this video is unavailable in its original format. Here’s another link to Learning to Change on YouTube (submitted by a different user) or Learning to Change on TeacherTube

Here’s your first step:

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  • http://www.chaosscenario.com/main/2008/05/is-our-children.html ChaosScenario

    Is Our Children Learning?

    Here’s an interesting video about fully utilizing the technology that is available today to disrupt and break through the restraints of the traditional classroom environment in the hopes that it will enable our kids to learn. There are going to

  • http://www.trumptheniche.com Marc

    Very good video, however, overloaded with buzz words except one person, Daniel Pink author of “A Whole new Mind: Why Right-Brainers will rule the future”. Which I highly recommend every to read. Below is what he said….good thing I can type fast.

    “the coin of the realm is not knowing the facts that they are going to need to know for the rest of their lives, the coin of the realm will be do you know how to find information, do you know how to validate it, do you know how to synthsize it, do you know how to leverage it, do you know how to communicate with it, do you know how to collaborate with it, do you know how to problem solve with it….thats the new set of 21st century literacies.”

    What to take from this? Schools (K-12) dont exist to “prepare someone for the workforce” but exist to teach people how to learn and the possibilities of what one can do with what they learn.

    • http://squarevox.com John Whiteside

      Marc – I agree with you that the primary mission of education shouldn’t be workforce training. That idea has been around in American culture more than most other societies for a long time, though, and has been reinforced by the reality that education opened up a lot of economic opportunities for a lot of Americans in the 20th century.

      Pink’s quote is right on, but I just question whether all this technology is helping anybody validate anything, or distinguish between good and bad sources of information. It’s ultimately very shallow, and I find as time goes by that I believe more and more that a traditional liberal arts education is probably the best way we’ve found to prepare a smart person for life.

      • http://www.converstations.com MikeSansone

        Marc & John – good point on teaching people how to learn being the key — and by doing that, future generations of workforce improve.

  • http://www.ryanhealy.com Ryan Healy

    Mike – Thanks for the video. Mostly good stuff. I felt the way Marc felt. Daniel Pink’s comment was the most constructive.

    After being involved in the marketing of education for three years, I’ve concluded that education is about helping kids to develop a love for learning rather than stuffing their heads with facts.

    If a child loves to learn… and knows how to learn… he or she will be unstoppable. But if you stuff a kid’s head full of facts and make education boring, the child will be stopped before he or she ever gets started. Unfortunately, most public schools tend to do the latter.

    • http://www.converstations.com MikeSansone

      Great point Ryan — and your enthusiasm comes through your text (are you a copywriter or somethin’?)

      • http://www.ryanhealy.com Ryan Healy

        Copywriter?

        I don’t know what you’re talking about… ;-)

  • http://squarevox.com John Whiteside

    The unspoken assumption here is that if a kid is creating content or some kind – sending email, creating a social network profile, putting a video on YouTube – that’s inherently good. What’s missing is another question: do they know anything? are they learning to think deeply about things? are they able to think critically about information they encounter? Are they informed about important things?

    Because the fact is some things are more important than others. I think it’s great that it’s so much easier for a creative kid to find ways to express that creativity, but if it’s coming at the expense of being able to do primary research, evaluate information, or spend two hours reading something that gives more than a sound bite take on a topic.

    And it appears that this is not happening. In a world where senior citizens are demonstrating that they can learn to use new technology, the big educational challenge isn’t making sure kids are up on the latest technology (all of which will be obsolete when they finish school anyway), it’s critical thinking, intellectual curiousity, and appreciation for complex thought that is important.

  • http://www.3r.ie Riccardo

    I come from Italy…
    and in Italy the situation is even worst..
    technolgy at school is nearly banned and classical education is been slowly renewed…
    I now that also in the US things could go better, but in some places things are even worst.

  • http://brainbasedbiz.blogspot.com Robyn

    Mike, many bloggers attention spans are short too, and are easily bored so what does that tell us as creators?

    • http://www.converstations.com MikeSansone

      Robyn, I think as we adapt to an increasing amount of information/text/content – we all HAVE to get quicker in our discerning of what’s ‘nice to know’ vs ‘what’s ‘need to know’ – and pay attention to the latter. Cut to the quick is what it’s telling me.

  • http://Champlainprofessor.blogspot.com Elaine Young

    Do you have a name for the video? The link says it is no longer available…

    • http://www.converstations.com MikeSansone

      I’ve updated the post so that other links to the video are included. It’s possible the original link may come back to life, so I’ve left that up.

  • Anonymous

    It is awesome isn’t it? Did you see the one by Michael Wesch a while ago on Kids in Universities.

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    I definitely need to get hold of this blog… http://www.newtsk.com/ Absolutely glorious and colorfull,Thanks to your its very innovative..You are doing a great work and this is my one the favourite blog too…Keep up the Good Work…

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