Steve -- to your question about why it survives...
I differentiate lecture hall lectures from what At does because At, in my
mind, is an accomplished storyteller. To me that is different. He weaves
together stories which shock us, with a theory of his own which he has
immense passion for yet a desire to help others understand him, and his
wonderful huge heart. He is not ego driven nor arrogant with his
incredible ability, patience and encyclopedia like mind! Plus the
audience can choose or not to engage with At.
In education, few students can choose to engage in the style of teaching
-- unless they are presented with options at different schools for
teaching methodolgy.
In adult learning which has many proponents including Knowles and Kolb --
experiential learning is proposed to be the best way of learning -- as it
includes many different learning styles. All of my courses are designed
to take into consideration the variety of ways that people learn. An
experiment was done 25 years ago where experiential learning was used with
children and was found to be far superior. It didn't matter --it was
never adopted.
Why is the lecture hall system still in place? Because we still teach
people to memorize facts.. not actually learn. We stll want to have a
system of control and power -- the reason for the continuuing practice of
sermons ( btw church attendence, as far as I know, is still at an all time
low. Talk about missing the needs of your customers). The academic
process is aggressive and disrespectful. I just attended part of a
conference that was full of professors. The mode of interaction was not
one that fits well with any model of learning I have ever been involved
with. Quite frankly it was testosterone driven sword play and to me it
was quite boring and unenlightening.
The system of education is in the same horrible maze that government,
healthcare, legal, penal -- you name it!! They are all stuck because there
are very powerful interest groups who keep them the same AND it is too big
to change. It seems as if anarchy or some sort of catasrophe are what
will change these systems. Education has gotten feedback for ages that
people don't come out with usable skills...The same comment has been made
for many years. This is not to say that our teachers are to blame -- they
do a tough job in an unforgiving system. All the latest round of attacks
on teachers with this teacher testing stuff is insane. The system used
its way of teaching to find out if teachers memorized knowledge on an
unbelievable range of topics. Why not test them on their ability to deal
with kids instead of theories about dealing with kids? Sigh -- we always
attempt fixes which perpetuate the ill instead of looking at the root
cause.
There are options -- like Waldorf or Montessori schools for the up to 18
years olds. And there are options for learning in colleges. But the
majority of our most precious resource is still subjected to the numbing
effects of "talking heads".
Sherri
sherri@maloufinc.com Tel:603-672-0355
LMA, Inc Fax:603-673-7120
--Sherri Malouf <sherri@maloufinc.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>