"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Thursday, March 03, 2016

Why the push for nonfiction.

Reed Hastings has said that "software was best for teaching 'subjects with correct answers,' but 'it will take 5 to 10 years of hard work to figure out' how to use it to teach an interpretive subject like history or literature. 
Correct. And this, I assume, is why there has been such an emphasis on non-fiction and less encouragement of fiction in recent years, despite overwhelming evidence that fiction is highly beneficial in many ways (see eg http://skrashen.blogspot.com/2015/10/fiction-hottest-topic-of-all.html  for a short review).  More teaching using computers > more profits for technology companies.

Posted as a comment on:
http://www.alternet.org/comments/education/netflix-billionaire-reed-hastings-crusade-replace-public-school-teachers-computers#disqus_thread

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