Another Lesson

Honestly, I would love to bring up the idea about putting advertisements on tests/readings/course materials, but I'm afraid my blog will be cut off.  The point isn't that marketing in schools is a good idea, but that it seems to be thinking "outside of the box," which we discussed yesterday.  However, the response I received from advertising on course materials taught me that not all new thought is appropriately "outside the box."  Some new ideas are garbage; perhaps it is our job, as educational leaders, to determine what is and what is not "outside the box."  (Oh, and that brings me to another point that I had last night: it seems ironic that we are using a cliche to encourage people to think differently.  "Think outside of the box" has been used so much that it has lost much of its meaning, hence why it is labeled a cliche.  How can we think in new ways if we are unable to create new ways to express ourselves?  Linguistic theorists (i.e. Kenneth Burke) have posited that thought is crafted by language; if people don't have language they are unable to shape concepts.  Or in other words, there is an inexorable link between language and thought.  Therefore, if we are hung up on dried out cliches aren't our ideas going to be dried out as well?)

This is funny because I really wanted to talk about John Seely Brown and his idea of short attention spans and navigating information being the new forms of literacy.  He has some interesting ideas.  In fact, today I had a student come into office hours and text while talking with me about her essay.  At first I was offended, but then I thought about JSB and reevaluated my emotions.  She was able to participate in the conversation, so what was the big deal?  It seems as though younger people are very adept at navigating multiple sources of information, and if it wasn't for JSB I wouldn't have had that perspective.