We have a few ideas of how our school would work, but more than likely it will stem from whatever we end up doing for our own kids. We’re looking into homeschooling for our kids (one will be 3 in July, the other will be 1 in August) but we’d like to co-op with other families who share our values. That way every parent could contribute their particular talent.

The older I get the more I worry about this stuff. I keep pressing my kids (10, 12) on the importance of getting good grades and going to college , but then sometimes I wonder how important that really is, or at least how important it should be. My girlfriend and I talk about this a lot. She is a prof. at UNF and she is totally dissatisfied with the type of student she gets. She wonders why they’re even in college. The only answer she can come up with is to get a better job. It seems like this “get a better job” is what our school system is based on from K all the way up.

Thanks guys for stating my frustrations so eloquently.

http://www.diylounge.com/

check out the teachers list.

http://www.diylounge.com/teacherlist.php

Dang Portland has it all.

Any examples?

I’d like to know more.

Its no wonder I get students (and parents!) who, as Ackbar pointed out, react as dissatisfied consumers. I’ve always believed that learning is a process, not just just a product. It is the institution that becomes the product, meanwhile the process of supplying our kids with he real tools to carry the culture and democracy on is failing, clearly. But on the other hand, schools and teachers have to defend their turf. With legislators who compulsively cut taxes and serve special interests, education is a fat cow that has to fight not to be slaughtered every few years. So I understand the bunker mentality of teachers and administrators (here in FL), and this endangered status of stymies real substantial change. But change we must. Maybe it is the diffusion of the idea of the educational system. But it means that parents are going to have to take a larger part in their kids learning. That’s why I plan to do.

Thanks Bridget. Those words give me some perspective. And thanks Ackbar. To have this conversation is key.

i don’t think this comes from any individual’s personal failing, but does have to do with an inability to form a philosophy that brings us together. we were taught in school to compete with our peers, and in my friendships now I have to work very hard not to give into that feeling of ‘better or worse than.’

to believe in education doesn’t mean to believe in the institution, it is to go to the root of the matter. defending the institution, whether it is public schooling or college, this is putting the cart before the horse. make a school of yourself. i am not an educator by trade, but i like educators, have always had lots of teacher friends, my wife is an educator. i think it is important to define what it is essentially you seek to teach, and then ask if the institution is appropriate to your message. and often, unfortunately, i think it is not.

I suppose there is a part of me that would like to teach one day but I still do not feel I have anything to teach. I relate to Socrates in this sense, I keep coming up to the feeling that I know very little about life, it is so vast, so big, and when I go into some setting as an authority, what am I really representing. Often, when I think of school, I just see a bunch of kids who are sent away so their parents can do labor, so that they can learn to be obedient and one day labor themselves. call me a socialist…

it does great benefit to the wealthy that we all distrust one another so much, that we are all so threatened by one another, that we are convinced we must compete for the limited resources, all products of schooling, I am much more skeptical of this than I am new technology.

p.s. - to valuistics, i agree “the best stuff does both”

So, getting down on my knees and groveling - please stay in the schools!! We need you.

At my elementary school, we had access twice a month to a “computer lab,” where were introduced to Microsoft Paint, learned about typing, and some other games that had to do with music I think. We played Oregon Trail and Dynopark Tycoon (I think it was called, which was set up like early Sims games). We played Gizmos and Gadgets, which was a math/physics software tucked into a narrative. And there was another just like it having to do with Santa and elves or something, but was really just a math tool.

And while those are kind of cool, they sometimes can reach boring, because the story didn’t change very much. And also they mostly cater to one type of intelligence, one hemisphere of the brain.

Having just come out of the public education system, I’d say that they’re teaching kids more on the side of problem solving than on the side of memorization and big-picture. You have to be the kind of person that naturally thinks about the big-picture to come out of these classes with anything of worth. There’s been a lot of weight put into homework more so than in-class performance, and what we do in the classes is pretty much geared toward tests. Number crunching grands-fromages demand so many standardized tests out of us that the material we’re taught (in a regular class, not a gifted class) is catering directly to what’s on the test. It doesn’t feel like much is expected of us, just that we score big numbers on this test, and the next test, and the next test. People get used to not having much expected of them, and stop caring, start doing “just enough” to get by. Boredom goes in a vicious circle, and it’s worsened when you have to sit still the whole time, and be quiet, and pay attention to the powerpoint, and it’s freezing cold in the room, and anything you might do that’s small just to keep some part of your brain going has to be put away. I think it’s partly the fault of the *way* we’re taught that has us so bored with education and learning.

Some of us know there are other ways to learn, and learn very quickly, and enjoy knowing things. But the public school system is just Death Valley. In the spirit of TED talks, everyone should listen to Sir Ken Robinson’s talk. That’s a very very good talk on this subject.

My work often responds in some way to the educating desire in me. Sometimes I respond with work that is shrill and dystopian and full of warning, and other times I respond with work that laughs despite the tragedy unfolding around me. The best stuff does both. It is important for me now to let go and make work that loosens the rules to the point where BOTH tragedy and the comedy come forth. Thanks for the convseration and we should grab a beer or wheat grass juice sometime. And thanks for the podcast list.

I used to listen to the Bungie podcast, makers of Halo, and they talked about how they would hire straight up illustrators because they had such great visual ideas, people with very little software knowledge.

as far as tragedies in the past, I believe that history has always been an available form of knowledge, and ignorance is a force that will always be in the universe, and so to live in fear of this, of terror, of tyrants, this is not the role of the artist, in my humble opinion. we are, in the immortal words of willy wonka, …the music makers… and *we* are the dreamers of dreams. we are forced to embrace knowledge even though it has a double edge. just sharing my opinion, it is not constructive for someone with lots of creative energy to spend too much time worrying about those who don’t. what, afterall, can one really do about such a thing? i leave that to the politicians, activists and spiritual leaders.

peace,
al

I know that the culture will just morph, and that we’re always losing a part of the past and gaining some new insight from being in the present. I’ve never believed the people from my parent’s generational cohort that things were any better in the 50’s. But I have to believe that old saw about “He who forgets the past…” And I worry that with this brave new digital frontier we really risk eliminating our cultural memory.

The Futurists of the Machine Age in the early 20th century saw such paradigm-shattering changes about to happen and saw people becoming machines as well. The Machine Age changed the world and sparked Modernism in every sense, but their optimism about machines partly fueled the nightmare of WW1. The machine age also brought us machine guns and poison gas and the Holocaust and nuclear weapons. I don’t mean to focus on the negative, but if we only dive headfirst into the new age, then we could easily come out on the losing end and in the end it will not have been worth blindly giving up our “old ways.”

I get the role of artists in digital interfaces and agree that its the art and design that make a virtual experience relevant and enthralling. I look forward to being an artist working in this fashion because I trust myself to be a responsible steward of culture going forward. But when will it happen? I know the future is now, and I’m not concerned with being left in the dust like my Boomer parents, but I don’t see job postings for artists without any 3D graphics experience (people with my skills instead) working for game companies. Will someone give me advice about where to look? Because it’s slim pickins for art educator jobs and I’m ready for a change/

I think what will be required of people in the coming changes is a kind of surrender to change, as it accelerates past our comfort level.

I remember when I was in my early 20’s and I would meet older men and women who would hark back to ‘the good ole days’ and they were resistant to new technologies, and I remember saying to myself that I did not want to be like that, that I wanted to remain youthfully enthusiastic about cultural innovation, but in an age of accelerating returns that is easier said than done. Our attachments last a very short time, and lead to a kind of promiscuity of culture.

When I play Grand Theft Auto I am blown away by the technology in the same way I was when I first saw Lawrence of Arabia, but now I know by this summer there will be a game that makes me never want to play GTA 4 again. The sadness in this is directly related to my age, and if I wish to remain open and involved I have to detach from this, dive in, head first, constantly, faster and faster and soon I will have better processors in my brain that will allow my very experience of time to slow down a bit, pardon the pun. at least, this is the hope I see in Kurzweil’s book.

On a personal note, ever since I was a kid I wanted to go to the moon. I have one dream that is bigger than anything else in my soul, to sit on the surface of the moon and to look at my own planet. Well, quite a few years ago I began to let go of that dream, processing it, mourning it, doing what I thought was the prudent, mature thing to do, letting the astronauts have what they worked so hard to have. Well, after reading this book, and with this new promise of extended life, I have resurrected this dream and it feels great.

it’s been fun reading this fractal form of a conversation.

peace,
al

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzweil?currentPage=1

And while programmers certainly have a place in game development, the larger role is for artists, level designers, etc. You need good art and storytelling skills to make games. The technical skills are secondary. Look at the huge success of Grand Theft Auto IV. There were technical advances that made that interesting, but people love it because of the story, visuals, and game play.

Check out http://www.wix.com for an amazing look at how the average person can now make rich flash sites for free. I don’t work for them.

I could see educators easily creating their own 3d modeled games to parallel their classes with similar tools.

Or until then educators as subject matter experts working with game developers to define such games.

The article was interesting because it defines how the kids have changed. They are evolving to the technology. They aren’t dumb, but are just used to learning differently.

It’s a generation gap that must be bridged. And it will be.

I don’t think the future is the end of culture by any means. It’s a new type of culture. One in which the marriage of man and technology means the evolution of a new type of IQ and intelligence.

Culture will be played out now in a first person shooter and really… already is.

Yes, I agree, and I believe that the ideas emerging in this thread are some of the more interesting and vital on Jaxcal so far. But my question is what does it mean? Doesn’t this miracle technology all this rests upon depend on having a public capable not just only of consuming info or facts but also supplying them? I have no doubt we’ll be using video games in education more in the future, but who will make these games? I feel like I might have a lot to contribute to such a future, but do I even have a place in shaping it because I don’t program computers or design software? I’d love to be an artist who makes virtual realities, but without a background in computer science does that mean I can’t contribute? I’d like to think that the knowledge I’ve built over the course of my life can move on into the future, but with the possible exception of my two sons, (one of which is a reading maniac) I do not see students really taking up the helm. Just knowing where to find th info is not the same as being a part of a culture. So tell me, anyone, does the future mean the end of culture? and if so, what will it be replaced with, who will have access to it, and where do artists fit in?