Friday, November 17, 2017
Gernsback vs Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback was still editing in 1957 when Sputnik stunned American education. Unlike most commentators, he diagnosed the CULTURAL part of the problem correctly:
Russia was rewarding its nerds with STATUS and we weren't. This situation never changed. We are still rewarding jocks and criminals, still pushing nerds off bridges.
Unfortunately Gernsback wasn't better than anyone else in diagnosing the EDUCATIONAL part of the problem,
He wanted to spread LECTURES by teachers who were good LECTURERS. He completely missed the important point. Russian math and science ed was HANDS-ON. That's why it worked.
He refers to his earlier article in May 56. Let's see if he gave a different set of details then:
Nope. He thinks we need lectures by Einstein. He wants local teachers to be record-keepers for Einstein, not supervisors of EXPERIMENTS.
This is especially strange because GERNSBACK'S OWN MAGAZINES had been a MAGNIFICENT SOURCE OF HANDS-ON EDUCATION for 40 years. Readers of his mags were presented with an overflowing cornucopia of REAL EXPERIMENTS and REAL PROJECTS to develop their own talents and skills.
Why didn't he see this? Instead of proposing a new high-tech extension of our brain-eating THEORIZE AND MEMORIZE monstrosity, he should have proposed a National Gernsback Project. Select appropriate articles from old and new Gernsback publications, turn them into learning experiences for various ages with parts kits and workbooks and teacher manuals.
Immodest and crass? Yes, but it was THE CORRECT FUCKING SOLUTION.
Russia was rewarding its nerds with STATUS and we weren't. This situation never changed. We are still rewarding jocks and criminals, still pushing nerds off bridges.
Unfortunately Gernsback wasn't better than anyone else in diagnosing the EDUCATIONAL part of the problem,
He wanted to spread LECTURES by teachers who were good LECTURERS. He completely missed the important point. Russian math and science ed was HANDS-ON. That's why it worked.
He refers to his earlier article in May 56. Let's see if he gave a different set of details then:
Nope. He thinks we need lectures by Einstein. He wants local teachers to be record-keepers for Einstein, not supervisors of EXPERIMENTS.
This is especially strange because GERNSBACK'S OWN MAGAZINES had been a MAGNIFICENT SOURCE OF HANDS-ON EDUCATION for 40 years. Readers of his mags were presented with an overflowing cornucopia of REAL EXPERIMENTS and REAL PROJECTS to develop their own talents and skills.
Why didn't he see this? Instead of proposing a new high-tech extension of our brain-eating THEORIZE AND MEMORIZE monstrosity, he should have proposed a National Gernsback Project. Select appropriate articles from old and new Gernsback publications, turn them into learning experiences for various ages with parts kits and workbooks and teacher manuals.
Immodest and crass? Yes, but it was THE CORRECT FUCKING SOLUTION.Labels: Experiential education
¶ 1:30 AM
