The New York Times
September 21, 2008
The Way We Live Now
"Geek Lessons"
By MARK EDMUNDSON
Tremendous article, I encourage all to give it a read. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1379736000&en=ce7a81394b8fd5bb&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
The article plays with a quote taken from the movie Almost Famous.
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you are uncool.”
The author's premise is that ultimately a good teacher is "uncool." A good teacher is the honest assessor of reality who challenges her students to be honest as well. Only then, when we get past the pretenses that our media culture hoists upon us, can true learning take place.
The article is fun, it serves as a slight corrective to the over reliance upon technology or other fads. However it works only if taken with a grain of salt. Technology can certainly be misused or used to distract the student from other inadequacies of the teacher. But it should not become the bogey man. It is a tool that can be used and should used to facilitate education.
Besides the bromides against the prevalence of gadgets and gizmo's in the classroom, the article shines brightest when it calls for honesty and authenticity over faddishness and hipness in the classrooms. Students respond well to an educator who posits his uncool but real life experience as a means to evaluate the material.
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2 comments:
I am concerned at times that we, in education, focus too much on the teaching instead of the student.
I do not think the importance of the teacher-student relationship can be overstated, and the argument can be made that as much energy should be spent on that as the lesson.
I like the fact that the author states that sometimes teaching what is counterintuitive, while controvercial, can get more out of a student than teaching the mundane, more apparent point of view.
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