After watching the video by Seth Godin, it made me take a hard look at how we approach education. I thought about my experiences within the educational system from grade school through my higher education and realized that I rarely thought of learning with an innovative approach. It always just consisted of me attending the classes and doing what was expected of me enough to get a passing grade. I never really thought about the material outside of studying and often forgot the content right after I turned in my tests. The idea that Godin presented in the video was interesting because it pointed out how education is somewhat framed in a way that it is supposed to open up a world of possibilities for students (e.g. think about our motto of “Invent the Future”); however, we educate students in a way that boxes them into a certain way of thinking about the content.
As I have mentioned throughout the semester, the hardest “thinking” that I have had to do on my own with regards to education has been since I started graduate school. For a while, I struggled with generating my own thoughts and not being told what or how I should be thinking about the content. For those who do not explore higher education, they might not encounter this idea of innovative thinking. Therefore, we need to figure out how to generate an environment starting in grade school where students are not learning in a cookie-cutter manner, but approaching education in a way that inspires them to think outside the box, in a more innovative manner.
I really liked the comment that Godin made about baseball fans in regards to textbooks, because it really put things into perspective. If we want students to get excited about and strive to innovative thinking, why would we thinking that a massive book of text would generate these feelings? I am not sure of one student who actually likes to do the required readings for class, but we will spend ample time reading about things that actually interest us and peak our imagination without any hesitation. Therefore, if we are able to generate a similar feeling towards education, students will generally want to learn and take a more proactive, rather than passive, role in their education.