Don't worry: girls can read this post, too.
Did anybody see the new Star Trek movie? It was good, even if you don't like Star Trek. And did anybody else notice that the Vulcans totally use Skinner teaching machines? That's right, those little holes in the floor are the perfect condition for the little pointy-eared children to receive the undivided attention of their virtual instructors. They learn without distraction, are quizzed verbally, and we can presume that the content is paced to match each student's needs and strengths.
And clearly it works, too, because Vulcans are freakin' smart.
However, look at their social skills! Useless when it comes to people, zero emotional competency, no charisma. Just look at how they deal with other people, how they avoid conflict until it explodes out. Poor little Spock, being teased about his mother and then beating that older kid up. This is not a well run institution!
The problem is that Vulcan schools are all academically oriented. There’s that real push to achieve in grades, to get your diploma, and to go out to the Vulcan science league or Starfleet academy or something. Actually no, not Starfleet. That’s kinda’ the Vulcan equivalent of community college. Anyway, there’s no time spent in communal classrooms learning from other students and engaging in nourishing social contact. I bet they don’t have any sports teams either.
I’m… really sick right now. Just bear with me.
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ReplyDeleteInteresting Moss...yeah.
ReplyDeleteMaybe not keeping up with the talk about Vulkins, but do you think that our society's switching to technology for learning (e-learning, online classes, etc.) is doing the same thing as the Vulkins? Are we sacrificing social skills for academics?
For my classroom psych paper I wrote about the topic "are friends a luxury or a necessity for school children?" In my paper I argued that friends are a necessity for the reasons we discussed in class. Friends are a way to establish and practice essential social skills. Friendships are models of future relationships. Friends serve as emotional and cognitive resources for a child (in this example maybe helping to buffer against an outburst like Spock's). And finally, friends are sources of information for children. From the papers I reviewed it seemed that there was overwhelming evidence for friends playing an essential role in the social, cognitive, and emotional development of a child. Friends provided functions that could not be easily replaced by other interactions (such as instruction on social skills).
ReplyDeleteMaybe others who did the same topic could chime in on what they found as well.
I don't understand the subheading. Is Moss implying that girls aren’t interested in science fiction? I went to Star Trek on opening night (uhh.. I had no idea it was opening night) and lots of ladies there were dressed up in “Uhura outfits.” Perhaps they aren’t interested in Star Trek; maybe they couldn’t resist an opportunity to play dress-up.
ReplyDeleteI’m going to watch the movie again; I saw the movie before I started this program and didn’t take note of the teaching techniques. The only thing that stands out in my mind was Kirk sneaking into Uhura’s dorm, to make out with blue aliens.
Maybe the Vulcans in your scenario, who are switching to a distance-learning type model for their classrooms, are developing social skills in other forums. Do you feel that schools need to be a place where students are developing social skills (considering that many students will eventually leave the school environment and enter a work environment), or maybe is it better to divorce that part of students' development from the academic atmosphere?
ReplyDeleteI don't see why the Vulcans could not be working collaboratively with their peers in this system, just as they are able to have the attention of instructors, although the image in the film is definitely one that suggests a society oriented toward Command teaching style. Our system of education supports a democratic social view; maybe theirs does not.
I was under the impression that Vulcans did not have any emotions and the only reason that Spock did was because he was only half Vulcan. In which case their socialization would be completely different.
ReplyDeleteI also wrote my pysch paper on friendship and I agree with Cameron that based on the majority if the research that I looked at friendship was really important for social, emotional and cognitive development; however, friendships did not necessarily encourage positive behaviour. In fact, high-quality friendship was never synonomous with positive behaviour. The research that I looked at argued that high-quality friendship was a product of holding similar values and beliefs. Consequently, the idea that a student is being negatively infuenced by another student would only happen in a relationship void of high-quality friendship. If high-quality frienship is present then both students would value the same negative behaviour; however, one student may act on their values more vocally.
What does this have to do with the Vulcans?
Kirk and Spock should have never been friends!
No really, I don't know
Well I went to Star Trek because my sister liked the actor playing Captain Kirk and I quite enjoyed it. Time travel always confuses me in movies but eventually I caught on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kim that normally you wouldn't think Spock and Kirk would be friends since they are just so different but I think by they did find common goals and maybe that was enough for a friendship to develop. That could be something important in terms of classrooms and using common goals as ways to foster friendships in the classroom.
I also agree with sometimes the over-emphasis on academics may hurt social skills. I see some institutions changing in some ways and there is a push towards more well-rounded students. A lot of medical schools not only look for students with high grades but students that also have a lot of extra-curricular activities consisting of volunteering, working or being on a sports team. I like the idea of trying to get people to develop social skills even if the focus on academics is still very high.
I can't believe I just responded to a Star Trek thread considering I knew nothing about it until I watched the movie last spring.