Friday, August 20, 2010
Teaching and Entertaining Isn't Dangerous
I disagree with Postman on chapter ten, "Teaching as an Amusing Activity" because I don't think that it is dangerous that programs like "Sesame Street" or "The Electric Company"combine learning with entertainment because it helps people to learn and understand the subject unlike Postman who thinks it just teaches people how to love the television. It is true that televise education is incomparable to print education because print education is more detailed and it analyzes the information, but it is less intersting to learn from a book than on a television screen. In some cases it is even better to learn from something that is entertaining; for example, "Your Baby Can Read" is a program which teach young children how to read at an early age by combining learning with entertainment. How can you teach a child how to read by print if the child is just ten months old? Certainly not by giving the child a book to learn from because the child will not be interested. Everyone knows the alphabet but who can say the whole alphabet without singing it. Televise education are very helpful and I don't think it will replace print education but help understand it.
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Teaching as entertainment doesn't sound so dangerous. As long as you don't abuse it, of course. I think the conflict lies more with television and print both trying to teach. If children were to learn from television they would probably expect the things they learn to be entertaining. Children will probably then expect print to be entertaining, which, as you stated, "is less interesting to learn from". So, I have no real argument that teaching as entertainment is dangerous, but I would like to point out that the conflict and problem lies in that television and print education are two very opposite mediums, thus causing sparks to fly between the two since entertainment is being used to educate children while our system and schools are still largely based on print.
ReplyDeleteThats a good point "Your Baby Can Read" does combine entertainment and learning and it does not seem dangerous of threatening. I believe that if people have another form of education besides just television its just fine. Yet, if people abuse teaching as entertainment it can become dangerous. Although many times I think that most of us do abuse it.
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