In case you didn't know, I'm a big fan of a Youtube channel called Epic Rap Battles of History. Basically, they pit two historical figures or fictional characters who are related in some way against each other in a rap battle (an epic one). Some examples: Martin Luther King vs. Gandhi, Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs, William Shakespeare vs. Dr. Seuss. Here's a link to what is, in my opinion, one of the best ones. They are hilarious, catchy, and informative, especially if you're the kind of person (like myself) who is likely to search for the meaning of every little reference that I don't get on forums and lyric-analysis sites.
Hamilton is a hip-hop musical (yes, such a thing exists (exactly one, in fact)) based around the life of Alexander Hamilton. It follows Hamilton from his arrival in America through his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. Along the way, we learn about the conflict between Loyalists and Patriots, the historic Battle of Yorktown, and Hamilton's debates with Thomas Jefferson while serving on Washington's first cabinet (in the form of rap battles, of course). Here's a link to the soundtrack.
Both of these are awesome, in their own way, and both are things I find myself listening to, watching, reading about, etc. over and over. There's something unique about these forms of media, and it's that they are educational. I have learned a lot about various historical figures from Epic Rap Battles of History, and I will never forget any of the topics sung about in Hamilton. Even if Epic Rap Battles doesn't directly teach you everything, it can act more as a hook to get you interested in a topic and inspire you to do more research, like I have countless times. For example, when I first listened to it I didn't understand the line in the Russian Leaders battle where Putin says, "the last man who attacked me lived a half-life so comrade come at me," but after looking it up I learned about the misfortunes that mysteriously befall Putin's enemies, and how ridiculously clever that line is. And as far as Hamilton goes, how many people who got into Hamilton (there are literally tens of millions) now know exponentially more about early America than they would have otherwise? Both franchises have simultaneously entertained and informed.
Education right now is not customer-oriented. I encourage you to pull out your student handbook and look at the student rights, the parent rights, the teacher rights, and the staff rights, and then look at each group's responsibilities. Notice all of the ones that basically say "make sure no one does anything to change any school rules," and "The teacher is always right." Then take out a pen and write in all of the rights that should be there but aren't, and circle all of the responsibilities that haven't been carried out. Think about how school would look if it was actually designed to do what was best for the students (what a profound concept). Clearly we're not there right now. Do you ever feel like an information vacuum/blowdryer? Like you're just trying to absorb as much information as possible so you can spit it back out again? Or perhaps a word machine, one that has the task of arranging an endless stream of words into an order that will earn you the label of one of the letters you use in the words you manufacture. This is how school "teaches" students, by subtly forcing them to become robots if they want to deal with the heaps of homework, sacrificing leisure, physical health, and mental health to "succeed," whatever that means. Who could be expected to actually internalize anything of value in that environment?
When it's too easy to do well on the tests, students copy each others' homework. When it's harder to do well on the test, students still copy each others' homework, but this time they stay up way too late the night before the test trying to make sure they know what to do for the next day, but they are unlikely to internalize any of it. What, between these two scenarios, is the difference to the teachers and staff of the school? Absolutely nothing. There is no difference in what is learned, and their is no difference in the grades of the students. In fact, even if the kids did learn more in the second instance, there still wouldn't be a measurable difference to the school, because the students still got the same grades. The point is, all you change when you change the difficulty level of an undesirable task is the quality of life of the people who have to complete it.
In class, we've been talking about how there is a "clutter" or ads, and companies are always trying to find ways to break through the clutter. In The Persuaders, we learned about how marketing departments try to persuade us to persuade ourselves. We learned about Madison and Vine, the "seamless integration" of advertising into entertainment media. There is so much overwhelming, boring, regular advertising that it just doesn't work anymore. We learned that advertisers believe to have succeeded when consumers are actively seeking out their advertisements, not just forced to watch them because they really want to see the youtube video that comes after it.
Doesn't this seem to mirror, almost exactly, the situation in education? There is a clutter of work and of information, and none of it is stimulating to students. The solution isn't to keep on increasing the difficulty to encourage students to achieve better, the solution is to make the task desirable, to persuade us to educate ourselves. One way to do this? "Seamless integration" of education and entertainment, just like what Hamilton does. Then, students will want to seek out the education because it's also entertainment.
Obviously the advertising industry has figured this out a lot faster than the school system. Perhaps this is because companies rely on the opinions and feelings of their customers to succeed, where the school system couldn't focus less energy on it. That's because the school system will always exist, and the motivated/intelligent students will always do better than the others. This guarantees that, from the school system's perspective, it doesn't really matter what the school system is, unless by some miracle it starts caring about the well-being of students.
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