Without human rights, you cannot have world peace.
Without democracy, you cannot have human rights.
And if our ambasadors leave their democratic principles at the UN door, we ultimately work against the cause of democracy, not for it.
gary
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Future of Education
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
-- Benjamin Franklin
Among the challenges facing our country is the sad state of our education system. The usual solutions involve decreasing class size, better pay for teachers, and so forth. But I would like to propose another solution...the application of capitalism. And I don't mean privatization of the schools. Specifically I would like to propose a method of taking greater advantage of our best teachers, rewarding them accordingly.
All of us remember a teacher who left an impression on us...a great history teacher, a science teacher sparked our interest in space exploration, or a math teacher who made very complex equations seem easy. What would the world be like if ALL teachers where this good? What if we could somehow clone our most talented teachers. Imagine if the teacher who had the greatest lecture on the Civil War taught not 30 students, but 30 million. This is what I propose we do...clone our greatest talent. Not through biology, but through technology. We keep our existing teachers, but their job would be one of facilitating, not just teaching. Each classroom would be equipped with state of the art projection systems (cheap). The teacher would welcome the students, introduce the days topic, begin playback of the "guest" teacher's lecture, and followup with discussion and classroom activities as appropriate.
So who are the "guest" teachers? A guest teacher is any teacher who chose to record their lectures...essentially an education-specific youtube system. Of course competition would insure that only the best lectures would get the most "hits" (playbacks) and those teachers would be rewarded accordingly...basically a bonus on top of their regular teacher salary. Of course we would want to take advantage of technology to the fullest, including all forms of multimedia. And there wouldn't be just one large screen in place of the chalkboard, but many. Imagine how Ken Burns would present history. Or how Walt Disney would teach us about the desert. Producing this sort of multimedia lecture would not be cheap, so I would expect those teachers with the most talent to eventually leave direct teaching and instead create content full time for other teachers. That would be a loss to 30 students, but a gain to 30 million. Some might offer free teleconferences to accompany their lectures, answering questions in a live teleconference.
It all about igniting a love for learning in students. What better way to achieve this than to optimize the teaching process. Not everybody can teach philosophy like Plato. So hire Plato instead.
gary
-- Benjamin Franklin
Among the challenges facing our country is the sad state of our education system. The usual solutions involve decreasing class size, better pay for teachers, and so forth. But I would like to propose another solution...the application of capitalism. And I don't mean privatization of the schools. Specifically I would like to propose a method of taking greater advantage of our best teachers, rewarding them accordingly.
All of us remember a teacher who left an impression on us...a great history teacher, a science teacher sparked our interest in space exploration, or a math teacher who made very complex equations seem easy. What would the world be like if ALL teachers where this good? What if we could somehow clone our most talented teachers. Imagine if the teacher who had the greatest lecture on the Civil War taught not 30 students, but 30 million. This is what I propose we do...clone our greatest talent. Not through biology, but through technology. We keep our existing teachers, but their job would be one of facilitating, not just teaching. Each classroom would be equipped with state of the art projection systems (cheap). The teacher would welcome the students, introduce the days topic, begin playback of the "guest" teacher's lecture, and followup with discussion and classroom activities as appropriate.
So who are the "guest" teachers? A guest teacher is any teacher who chose to record their lectures...essentially an education-specific youtube system. Of course competition would insure that only the best lectures would get the most "hits" (playbacks) and those teachers would be rewarded accordingly...basically a bonus on top of their regular teacher salary. Of course we would want to take advantage of technology to the fullest, including all forms of multimedia. And there wouldn't be just one large screen in place of the chalkboard, but many. Imagine how Ken Burns would present history. Or how Walt Disney would teach us about the desert. Producing this sort of multimedia lecture would not be cheap, so I would expect those teachers with the most talent to eventually leave direct teaching and instead create content full time for other teachers. That would be a loss to 30 students, but a gain to 30 million. Some might offer free teleconferences to accompany their lectures, answering questions in a live teleconference.
It all about igniting a love for learning in students. What better way to achieve this than to optimize the teaching process. Not everybody can teach philosophy like Plato. So hire Plato instead.
gary
Welcome
Welcome to my blog. This will be my place to discuss politics, science, and other topics of interest to me. Stay tuned!
gary
gary
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