I just wanted to give my readers (hello...you are out there, right?) a little heads-up about what's "coming soon" on rachlovestheweb. First up, I'm definitely going to continue my exciting journey of discovery about what popular culture can teach us about the way schooling and education is now, how it could/should be, and might be in the future. I even have in mind which stories from popular fiction I want to explore next. First up, I'm going to look at the FOX television series House, M.D, a series I have been dedicatedly following for 5 seasons. I'm going to look at House (the character) as a teacher, and contrast his teaching approaches and characteristics as a teacher to some ideas in the literature about teaching and learning for the 21st century.
This might take me a little while to do, because I need to do a bit more research on two fronts. First, I need to go back and watch a few key episodes from earlier seasons. Second, I'm going to attempt to engage input into my analysis with the input of other House fans - who I'll access both from my personal family and friend networks (people I know), and from online fan discussion forums (people I don't know). As a prelude to the latter research strategy, I've been "lurking" on a fansite for the past couple of weeks, and I'm almost ready to step out from the shadows...
After the House research, I'm going to try to look at some stories from popular fiction that give us the ability to speculate about what education/schooling might be like in the future. I think this is probably going to steer me into the world of science fiction, and I've got one book in mind, Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel The Diamond Age. I'd love to get suggestions about any other examples you can think of which give interesting representations of education and schooling of the future - so if you've got suggestions, send them my way!
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I'm too frazzled to think about it properly right now, but I would love to give you some suggestions on sci fi novels involving education/schooling. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of sci fi (especially space opera genre) representations of schooling are basically military academies (so many sci fi plots are premised around warfare). Probably the best/most famous/controversial of these is Enders Game, the only good novel in Orson Scott Wells extensive oevre. Its a compelling story and if you read it, I'm happy to reread it so we can talk about it...
ReplyDeleteI'll start collecting other outstanding examples- I can think of at least very good and appropriate example, but can't remember title or author right now. But now I'm in a city of 100s of bookshops and can browse until I find what I want.
Yeah, I think you're right about the Militaristic Future Sci-Fi school thing. When I scanned my brain (metaphorically), my mind kept presenting me with images of a teenage character called Wesley on Star Trek Next Generation who, (in addition to being mildly annoying), was enrolled in the Federation's "Academy". I remember he wore a typical Star Trek one-piece jumpsuit uniform, but as to what his schooling in the Academy entailed, I can't think of much else...
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