Why teaching needs to be a form of entertainment

Posted on 24. Jun, 2009 by Cap'n Ko in Education, Pillaging Education

circus-education

I know right off the bat that 99% of teachers are going to disagree with everything I have to say. That’s why they’re not pirating education. That’s why they’re not swashbuckling the old-school ways. That’s also why their students don’t learn as much. It’s a bold piratey claim, but I believe in this 100%: Teaching needs to become a form of entertainment. And guess who’s responsibility that is? The teacher.

Why do I want to see this happen? There’s plenty of reasons.

Entertainer Wages

money

Teachers need to be paid entertainer wages. You might read this and think “Hey, that’s great, six figures for everyone!” That’s definitely not what I’m looking for. The best teachers should be paid in the millions. Yep, they should be getting 7 figures a year, just like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. The worst teachers should get almost nothing, kind of like all the crappy actors loitering around Hollywood. I know there’s stuff going on out there about giving teachers more money, but it’s not enough. Make the best teachers into rock stars and use the Internet to give millions of people access to the best teachers in the world.

A Change of Culture

I don’t know how many teachers I’ve interacted with that have the “I’m a teacher people should want to learn from me because I’m experienced” mentality. That’s a bundle of rubbish. People usually go to school because they have to – very rarely does someone really want to learn, and when they do it’s because of an amazing teacher.Teachers need to look at teaching more like entertainment, and get off their high-horse. I know it’s ideal to have students that are in wonderment of what we’re teaching, but that’s not how it works, and not how it should work. In entertainment culture if you suck then you get the boot. If you’re good, and you’re entertaining, you hit the prime time.

Can you imagine a society of people who are entertained by learning? Everybody has had those great teachers that they are constantly entertained by. I’ve learned more from those teachers than any other teacher I’ve had combined. If we treat teaching and learning as a form of entertainment, we’ll see the best teachers rise to the top, we’ll see more people getting access to better teachers, and our society will become a lot smarter.

I can’t wait until the day that TED talks are a regular TV program that I can sit down and watch every week. The beginning of entertainment in teaching will probably come from lectures like these, and spread. The internet will be a big deal in this as well. Soon, great teachers won’t be confined to their classroom or school. They’ll be able to reach millions with a simple webcam and mic setup. Watch out boring teachers, you’re going to get replaced!

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altonet

I once had a teacher who used to use teaching as a form of entertainment, I honestly think I learned more that way.

KirstenWinkler

The best teachers are those who see teaching not as a profession but as a passion. Great post, Cap'n ARR!

Eryk Banatt

Great post! I agree with you completely, there needs to be some sort of entertainment or focus for education to be effective.

formerhser

Entertainment - and how about interactive, too? I hated social studies - except the lone quarter that I learned about India. (Each quarter, we had a different teacher teaching a different part of the world.) This teacher made it interesting, taught us about the culture, how people lived - the part that makes it worth while learning, not just boring, dry, dates and places and wars. The kids all thought he was an "easy" teacher (meaning easy A's) but I saw that he really was just a GOOD teacher, who made the material stick well in all types of brains. I would be willing to be all those "mediocre" students who did will in his class, actually learned the material.

Squibbed

I couldn't agree with you more. I teach elementary school in a rural town in Ontario, Canada. It's a low socio-economic area and the kids, particularly the boys, are very disengaged in the learning process. I work my butt off to make as much as I can edu-tainment. I come in in characters (full costume) I teach in various accents and I even record myself so that I can play the lesson I could have done in person as a television show (you'd be surprised how engaged kids are when you do the SAME thing as you would in person, but put it on a screen). I'm no Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise, but maybe I could make some Tim Robbins money...

mrbaldwin

I enjoy your blog. I was directed here by Stumble! as I was drifting around online waiting for September to get here. I hope you keep writing new posts regularly. I see so many people get excited about a new endeavor, like a blog or website or podcasting or wikis and so on. Then, after the "newness" wears off...they update once every 3 months if at all. You are good at this. KEEP IT GOING.

chinamike

My problem with what you are saying is that you focus much too much on the teacher. Education should be driven by learning, not teaching. And learning is at once much, much more complex and satisfying than entertainment.

I think your ideas make sense at a very basic level. On this forum we all believe that class should be fun. But to equate teaching with entertainment is to confuse the job of an educator with the job of a performer. Your jobs are not to perform, so much as turn our students into performers. Our jobs are not to entertain as much as turn our students into curious, self-learners.

IMO your understanding of teachers as entertainers clouds the notion of what we should be doing as teachers and sends good teachers in the wrong direction.

Revathi

Everyone considers education as academic skills which is nothing but the left brain abilities. I think the author of this thread believes that education must be entertainment and joyful which can be achieved through right brain education . As an infant education expert for the past 17 years I believe that the purpose of education can only be achieved through creativity and imagination which are the abilities of most great people like einstein,michael faraday,leonardo d vinci etc.,

melvag

Hi stumbled here, and loved your blog. I'm a teacher here in New Zealand. I so agree with you, if I fail to grab the kids passion for learning it's my fault for not designing a lesson that is interesting, engaging and stretching and allows for the student to lead the learning. Ironically read a site tonight also that was the antithesis of this belief system where a teacher put forward more rote learning and desks in rows. Broke my heart, teaching today needs to be about the student, how do we engage them?

aminhotep

Attention and respect are things that teachers have to earn from their students. Which is not easy when the content they are teaching is designed to be lame. Its like a comedian trying to get a laugh with someone else's bad jokes.

Here's why it doesnt work: http://wp.me/ptcfd-1L

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