BOOK REPORT - Part 10 - New Languages: The Media

TEACHING AS A SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY

The media is the message. There is a need to study the media of the day in order to understand how to communicate to modern students.
 
There is a good, brief history of the transformation from speech, to writing, to print, to photo, recordings, radio, television, etc.
 
"One of the facts that invariably emerges from any study of human communication is that anxiety, suspician, and pessimism accompany communication change" (p. 162). This truth has not changed, yet confusingly, it is the educational community which treats the new media of the Internet and cell phones as suspicious and with disdain.
 
 From another perpective, the method of communication should support the message. For example, reading Shakespeare makes little sense, since it was many to be heard not read. The authors argue that the greatest invention of the 19th century was the invention of the method if invention. Uncovering the process of how to invent new things provides a blueprint of replication for new ideas, as well as invention.
 
Finally, if education is to be meaningful to students it must replicate the "real total-field world" in order to gain the attention of the students. If we want to talk about the "new education" we have to learn new languages to prevent talking ourselves to death (p. 169).
 
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 From R. Murry

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