Throw this one in the category of philosophical debates, but I sometimes wonder what we are teaching in our digital classrooms? When I first started teaching video, the goal was to create new filmmakers. But there are so many students for so few Speilberg-Lee-Coppolla-type openings. So what are we trying to teach? What kinds of skills are we passing on? And how will our students use them?
The Assimilated Negro Blog has some interesting comments based on reading an article by Malcom Gladwell on Genius : "This sort of pigeontails with my theory on genius, that being that we shouldn't view it as a skill or trait that an individual possesses, but more a zone or a place that we enter and leave. Genius, as I see it, is almost like falling in love. We all have the capacity for it, and perhaps some are more predisposed to fall than others, but everyone has their moments."
He goes on to add: "If you start working a job at 22, and stay there for ten years, at 32 you should be a master. And filmmakers and artists who start at 20, may hit their stride at 30. And of course you can accelerate or slow down the process according to how much you want to focus. And it highlights how you inhibit your potential in one fieldby spreading yourself across many fields."
So what do you think? Are we training young media professionals or giving kids skills that they will then apply to other fields? And if the latter is true, are we spreading them so thin that they will become "Jacks of all trades, Master of none"?
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