Remembering Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert
When I read of schools in New York spending $17.000.00 per year, per student, and graduating fifty six per cent of their students, I am beyond despondent. I read of bonds being issued to create more brick and mortar schools and wonder why we refuse to recognize a thing which has been shown to be far superior to the present form of education. I refer, of course, to the electronic teaching tools which have been so successful, and yet are virtually ignored. As a youth I looked forward, avidly, to a program on Saturday morning called “Mr Wizard”. I’m sure many of you, my age,also enjoyed Don Herbert’s efforts to explain Science in an interesting way. For you younger readers I recommend you go to “You Tube” and check out a few of the episodes, and you’ll see what I’m writing of. We watched his program because it caught, and held, our interest. Watching his show, in no way was required by our teachers in order to make a grade, or whatever. We watched because he was able to present his experiments in an “gotcha” way. I never saw, on TV, a Mathematics teacher,an English teacher, a teacher of finance, or a History teacher, though I’ve seen plenty of historical events, portrayed to rave reviews on TV, over the years, present their Academics in this manner. Too bad, it might have changed so many things in this country. It has to be the Teachers Unions resistance to this format, does it not?
There are thousands of teachers out there who could, if we utilized electronic teaching, reach minds eager to learn. One has only to look at the video game industry to see the tremendous interest in an entity , if it is INTERESTING. Today, many of our children have to skirt a gauntlet of “ganstas” simply to arrive at the school doors. Once in the classroom they are subjected to a cacophony of noise, and disruptive behavior, from other students who are beyond a teachers control, despite there best efforts. Teaching through electronic visual means is , and has been, available for years, I’m simply asking why $50 million , out of a $800 BILLION stimulus program could not be used, in a “good Faith” effort to find a better way to teach. What of the teachers who would be unemployed? Perhaps they could be one of those who are deemed interesting enough to appear on the screen. Perhaps others could produce behind the scenes. Tell ya what though, a Cap on education expenditures would clearly be reached. And, as long as this experiment continued to succeed, would, cause education expenses to not rise past previous levels, a good thing, to be sure. Kinda makes me wish Gov. Palin had tried this, on a state level,before she resigned. Alaska would be a perfect laboratory for such a forward looking approach. Though, in retrospect, I’m sure the NEA would never have “allowed” it. While I’m on this rant let me tell you about Red Auerbach, the great coach of the Boston Celtics. Red would come on the screen during halftimes of the NBA games and, in a few minutes, teach me more about Basketball than my high school coach ever did. See what I mean, Don Herbert and Red Auerbach, electronic teachers, without peer. But there are others out there who would, I’m sure, be even greater teaching Superstars.
