One of the aspects of my 8-5 job is that I get to have headphones on my head. Most of the time.
\nNot every job lets you do that.
\nIt kind of means that there is noise distractions in my environment. It also means that my job is mostly not that challenging. I can put some of my attention elsewhere as I plow through emails and databases.
\nI don\u2019t always listen to music. A whole lot of the time I am listening to someone talk. I like to learn interesting things I didn\u2019t know.
\nIt\u2019s a special balance, listening to something that is interesting but not so engrossing that I can\u2019t have part of my brain chugging away on answering emails and data fields.
\nThis week I have found something that fits the bill perfectly:
\nA recorded college class on classical mythology.
\nOn iTunes U, there is a video recording of a class that was taught in the University of Ohio more than a decade ago. It is exactly like being in a college class. Which means that it is not at all engrossing. It is barely interesting enough that it required a threat of failure to keep the students paying attention.
\nThat threat doesn\u2019t work on me. I hear the professor threatening with weary humor his audience with what may or may not be on the test.
\nHe repeats himself so often, that even though the subject matter is fascinating to me, it\u2019s dreary.
\nI\u2019ve talked before about Walter Benjamin\u2019s Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. I fully believe that teaching is an art, and learning is an art. This Ohio class is not high art. I am sure that the professor is far better at teaching than this snapshot would showcase.
\nHis teaching was captured, and it\u2019s pretty sad. It could be so much better.
\nKhan Academy flips teaching on its head. The subject matter can be consumed in a form that the student likes best-video, written, audio, you pick. Then a teacher can come in and interact.
\nWatching the dumpy teacher slowly slowly working through his subject is like cave drawings.
\nTeaching and learning can be so much better than that. It already is.
\nThis class is about classical Greek mythology. At least the part that I\u2019ve listened to so far.
\nThose Greeks made quite an impression you know. One quasi mythological man springs to mind when I think about this topic\u2014the art of teaching and learning.
\nSocrates had a famous style he used. They named it after him, the Socratic Method. Here is how Wikipedia explains it:
\na form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions.
\nThat\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about. My Ohio lecturer really tried to get his students to ask questions. And they were not having it.
\nWhy?
\nThe system as is currently stands does not reward questions.
\nLearning for learning\u2019s sake is nowhere in the curriculum.
\nIt didn\u2019t disappear though. It just went outside the system. I bet my Ohio lecturer whose name I don\u2019t remember would be delighted to hear that I was listening to his recorded class.
\nI\u2019m not the only one. Not his class, but all the ways that knowledge is being consumed.
\nI bet you that the other headphone-wearing cube dwellers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the aspects of my 8-5 job is that I get to have headphones on my head. Most of the time. Not every job lets you do that. It kind of means that there is noise distractions in my … Continue reading