Submitted by Veteran teacher (not verified) on January 8, 2008 - 17:49.
Mr. Lucas has made some very succesful movies, however, his views on education are misguided at best. They reflect the educrat mentality, which is irresitable to many, and seems intuitively correct. The facts, however, are otherwise.
Most students, most of the time would rather not engage in real academic learning. They would rather engage in the kinds of learning (student-centered, constructivist) that Lucas advocates. This is not academic and in fact very old. This is a tired rehash of Dewey's theories that have dominated education schools throughout much of the last century. The kind of seemingly vapid education that requires memorization that Lucas laments about, is in the end what works best for disadvantaged students in particular, and well enough for almost all students.
Most people are not as natively bright and self-directed as Lucas and they need some foundation of knowledge and skills.
Jeanne Chall, a figure-head of the liberal education establishment until her deah in 2000, wrote in her last book, The Achievement Challlenge, how teacher-centered direction instruction works best and how much of an utter failure student-centered education is. If Lucas thinks his ideas are new he should view this short film from the 1940s: http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/progressive-edu.html.
I am deeply, deeply concerned about the future of our young people. Their counterparts from India and China are learning much more than our young people, and, yes, they do a lot of memorizing and withstand lectures and obsorb lots of information. But they are also very creative.
Education should not be expected to be fun and immediately relevant. It should better than fun. It should be fulfilling and mind expanding. It requires lots of work and intensity. We do not need longer school days or schools years, we need more intensity and content oriented education. For fun we can have more team sports available to more students at all ability levels; they can learn “cooperative” skills, while bringing more blood to their brains and building self-esteem through hard work.
The directives from the education establishment are forcing a loss of discipline and rigor at a time when we need more of it.
We need to impart lots of knowledge and information to the millions of reluctant learners so that they have in their heads an educated mind even when the computer is down or the power is off - which might happen more as the impact of peak oil become real. The late Neil Postman said that computers have not solved any problems in education that were there before. Instead, computers and the internet have created new ones.
Its amazing to me that people like Lucas and Gates push this porgressive orthodoxy when they have never taught disadvatnatged students for any length of time.
Lucas's education views
Submitted by Veteran teacher (not verified) on January 8, 2008 - 17:49.
Mr. Lucas has made some very succesful movies, however, his views on education are misguided at best. They reflect the educrat mentality, which is irresitable to many, and seems intuitively correct. The facts, however, are otherwise.
Most students, most of the time would rather not engage in real academic learning. They would rather engage in the kinds of learning (student-centered, constructivist) that Lucas advocates. This is not academic and in fact very old. This is a tired rehash of Dewey's theories that have dominated education schools throughout much of the last century. The kind of seemingly vapid education that requires memorization that Lucas laments about, is in the end what works best for disadvantaged students in particular, and well enough for almost all students.
Most people are not as natively bright and self-directed as Lucas and they need some foundation of knowledge and skills.
Jeanne Chall, a figure-head of the liberal education establishment until her deah in 2000, wrote in her last book, The Achievement Challlenge, how teacher-centered direction instruction works best and how much of an utter failure student-centered education is. If Lucas thinks his ideas are new he should view this short film from the 1940s: http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/progressive-edu.html.
I am deeply, deeply concerned about the future of our young people. Their counterparts from India and China are learning much more than our young people, and, yes, they do a lot of memorizing and withstand lectures and obsorb lots of information. But they are also very creative.
Education should not be expected to be fun and immediately relevant. It should better than fun. It should be fulfilling and mind expanding. It requires lots of work and intensity. We do not need longer school days or schools years, we need more intensity and content oriented education. For fun we can have more team sports available to more students at all ability levels; they can learn “cooperative” skills, while bringing more blood to their brains and building self-esteem through hard work.
The directives from the education establishment are forcing a loss of discipline and rigor at a time when we need more of it.
We need to impart lots of knowledge and information to the millions of reluctant learners so that they have in their heads an educated mind even when the computer is down or the power is off - which might happen more as the impact of peak oil become real. The late Neil Postman said that computers have not solved any problems in education that were there before. Instead, computers and the internet have created new ones.
Its amazing to me that people like Lucas and Gates push this porgressive orthodoxy when they have never taught disadvatnatged students for any length of time.