Today, thanks to twitter, I came across two editorials from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that are extremely pertinent to education.
Students lost in digital wasteland
and
If it’s not on the test, don’t expect me to know it
Both of these articles deal with the expectations of students vs. instructors vs. system/standardized tests.
In the first editorial Eric Fox, an English professor, bemoans the shift to edutainment (not the word he uses) from education. He blames the shift on “packaged minds fresh off the factory farm of iPod, “American Idol” and Facebook, a vast herd of electronic sheep stuffed with fast facts and establishment filler.” It’s the establishment filler (I might have called it a filter) that Fox has the issue with.
The second editorial written by Laura Braziel a graduating senior at UGA, explains how students can “game” the system and become an honors graduate from a top five journalism school at a major university without actually learning much. She blames standardized testing.
As someone who works in instructional technology, these editorials are disconcerting. I have a passion for education and for learning. I believe technology should not get in the way of learning, but should enhance and deepen the learning process. I have mixed feelings about standarized tests and their impact on learning and curriculum. What you think?
I like your word, edutainment. It speaks I think to the long American process of apparently laughing ourselves to death. If we distract ourselves long and efficiently enough we won’t have to ponder some important stuff about being authentic humans. Establishment filter too. What are they filtering? I think we should all be disconcerted about these issues, as you suggest. But what to do about it? That student’s editorial was even more chilling than mine. How many of her are out there, with that awareness, yet able to recognize the liability she has, and accept it for what it is. Here is a major contradiction. Or is it? As Whitman said, Very well then, I contradict myself…. I contain multitudes.