I started out this blog originally with just a summary of what we had read, but naturally, I found it hard to push out much further than that. So instead, I decided to ponder: why are we reading this story? Education has been a recurring theme in our class, and pushing the boundaries of modern education specifically. But this story isn’t about using computers or turtles or technology to teach. It’s a different method of learning, by immersing the learner in a superior culture. Dr. C and I talked about Bruner’s spiral curriculum, and that is what connected with me in this story. The idea that if one is immersed in all of the learning/curriculum, not just the basics. We won’t always know what’s going on, but it pushes the mind further, and allows us glimpses of ideas that might be above our heads at the time. Its not simplified, spoon-fed learning. Studies have shown that immersion is the best way to learn a new language, so it seems obvious that the way we best learn the most basic knowledge would be the best way to learn all other knowledge, but instead, the school system is so caught up in levels and grades and spelling tests that it fails to acknowledge that the best learning often occurs when no one is “teaching”.
Alien Education?
This was written by shelby. Posted on Thursday, April 9, 2009, at 7:11 am. Filed under Education, Readings. Tagged baylor_nms_s09. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
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Although “it seems obvious” that immersion would work in all fields of study, I think we would run into problems actually putting this into practice. Take philosophy for example…I think it would be far better to have a knowledge of previous philosophers and what has already been said than to sit and think and come up with ideas that have already been done before. It would be better simply to expand on what we have learned (immersion would also prove difficult in higher level math courses)…I think that our education system provides a basic foundation needed for future comprehension and thought. leaving people to learn without grades or teachers would put trust in their personal motivation for knowledge- not something the general population has a whole lot of.
But without that personal motivation for knowledge, how does that basic foundation ever get formed?
I was a little surprised by the direction of discussion of the story. Or was I missing something? It seemed like we mostly discussed the story from a narrative standpoint, focusing on the characters’ feelings about their life on Kimon, Selden’s inner struggle, etc. and didn’t really address the whole Kimonians as a metaphor for new media / free knowledge as much.
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[...] by the end, I’d learned not only how to read ☺ but also how to blog. My favorite blog was the Alien Education blog. It was the first time that I thought through the reason that the reading was assigned. I had [...]