Teaching as an Amusing Activity: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Chapter 10

Intro Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 {pt 1} Ch. 4 {pt 2} Ch. 5 Ch. 6 Ch. 7 
Ch. 8 Ch. 9 {pt 1} Ch. 9 {pt 2} Ch. 10 Ch. 11

Part II, Chapter 10, Teaching as an Amusing Activity

While Postman does indeed have the right idea in this chapter, I think he really missed out on how much of an impact the computer would eventually have. Either way, the fact that television, and now computers and like technology, isn't really intended to help education but rather education is to help entertainment is evident. 

Postman begins with "Sesame Street". It was a bad idea from the start. It wasn't really to help educate children; it was to help children love television more. Because using television -and I think I will switch this here to stay modern technology because television itself is, imho, just about done for; it isn't what it was in Postman's time, that's for sure! -in the guise of education is a lie. It goes against traditional learning. Oh, and sure there are those who say that traditional learning is wrong and that there are better ways. Baloney. Anyway modern technology goes against book-learning and the traditional classroom. 

We face the rapid dissolution of the assumptions of an education organized around the slow-moving printed word, and the equally rapid emergence of a new education based on the speed-of-light electronic image...I mean only to say that, like the alphabet or the printing press, television has by its power to control the time, attention and cognitive habits of our youth gained the power to control their education. p. 145

There are three commandments for television:

Thou shalt have no prerequisites- this one is interesting; a show should not have to explain what it means or what went on in the last show to help understand this show. There are plenty of television shows now that do require a little backstory and even in Postman's time, with shows like "Dallas". But for the most part, each show is independent and requires no existing knowledge of what the show is about. "Television is a nongraded curriculum and excludes no viewer for any reason, at any time. In other words, in doing away with the idea of sequence and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself" (p. 147).

Thou shalt induce no perplexity- A perplexed learner is one that will turn the channel! Thinking about this, I reflect on shows that we watch in our home. Some require mindlessness, really. Specifically I'm thinking of the television shows that our kids watch like "Teen Titans", "Pokemon" and such. They require nothing but mindless viewing. Then I think of other shows we watch such as "Jeremy Clarkson War Stories" that give plenty to chew on and think about. But unless you stop the show, you can't really take the time to digest what you've just heard and seen. There's good, and there's bad...

Thou shalt avoid exposition like the ten plagues visited upon Egypt- "Television-teaching always takes the form of story-telling, conducted through dynamic images and supported by music" (p. 148). It's hard to argue this; television and modern technology are image and sound driven.

The name we may properly give to an education without prerequisites, perplexity and exposition is entertainment. p. 148

Postman relates a project called "The Voyage of the Mimi," which consists of a television series of twenty-six shows following a whale-research laboratory. There were books printed and computer games made for the project. According to Frank Withrow of the Department of Education it was to be a "flagship of what we are doing. It is a model that others will begin to follow" (p. 150). One of the biggest flags here is that the television series is the primary focus and books are now the "visual aid". 

There are plenty of proponents for modern technology to take the place of book-learning and reading of the printed word {and just a side-note: perhaps the reason so many have a learning disability when it comes to reading is because it is a secondary feature in education now; cognitive habits have been changed with the television and modern technology as the curriculum, as Postman said in the start of this chapter} but really they cannot say with definitive truth that technology is better for learning. In fact, Postman lists a lot of researchers who have found the opposite to be true {pages 151 & 152}. "In other words, so far as many reputable studies are concerned, television viewing does not significantly increase learning, is inferior to and less likely than print to cultivate higher-order, inferential thinking" (p. 152).

Postman ends with the assertion that television is educational. 

Just as reading a book -any kind of book- promotes a particular orientation toward learning, watching a television show does the same (p. 144)...Mainly they will have learned that learning is a form of entertainment or, more precisely, that anything worth learning can take the form of entertainment, and ought to. And they will not rebel if their English teacher asks them to learn the eight parts of speech through the medium of rock music...Indeed they will expect it and thus will be well prepared to receive their politics, their religion, their news and their commerce in the same delightful way. p. 154

Continuing with my studies to be an "official" teacher {going through all the college classes} I've been so surprised and shocked that there is such a push to use modern technology in place of books in education. They say that kids "can't learn" without these; they say that it "enhances the experience"; they say that it "makes it enjoyable." What happened to learning for the sake of learning and not for the sake of entertainment? 

The last chapter of Amusing Ourselves to Death is titled "The Huxleyan Warning." That will be the last post in this series.