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Brief History
Back in the late 60's, I began writing down my thoughts in a quest for answers to some trouble-some environmental situations. In August of 1978, I took these writings, which were beginning to take on the form of an educational program or a book, to the McLuhan Center Of Culture and Technology at Toronto. I wanted to get a critique on these writings as they were based primarily upon Marshall McLuhan's work. Soon after I arrived at the center I met Professor McLuhan, his son, Eric and his staff. When he found out what my intentions were for coming to his center, he made the remark to me that if the idea I brought to him wasn't about perceptual development he didn't want to waste his time or mine talking about it. End of discussion.
Well I really wasn't sure exactly what the direction this writing was taking at that time so this remark threw me a little. I was searching for my direction and I didn't know how to react to this comment. He was tolerant with me and ask his son Eric to help me with the critique. At the end of my stay there I did, however, get a chance to visit with the professor in a short ride home at the end of his office day. Sadly, he died two years later and I didn't get a chance to show him the progress I had made as a result of this visit.
I am only now, some 28 years later, finally zeroing in on perceptual skill development as the primary focus of the Minds Alive idea. You might say that I am a slow learner, especially since it took me this long to reach this point. As I look back over the course of this writing I can see that perceptual development, and the element of play that is involved in this skill development, was always an important part of this effort. It just was not as clear as it should have been to me. It has taken these past many years before I was truly able to accept the idea of perceptual development and play as being so critical to our success within the new speeded up information environment. If you ever read Marshall McLuhan's work you would probably understand why it has taken me so long to get what he is trying to tell the world. In his book, Understanding Media-The Extension of Man , 1964 it is mentioned in the Introduction that the editor of this work made the remark that 75% of the information in this book was new and that most books are at the most 10% new information Because his material was so new, very few of us grasped right away what he was really saying.
It is interesting to note that McLuhan's perceptions of the disconcerting effects that our electronic media would have on our way of life have been very accurate and are right on target. In fact, most of his predictions based upon these perceptions have already come to pass. Unfortunately very little has been done to implement counter measures to these
effects. Everyday we are experiencing the fall out from the effects these technologies are having on our work, our jobs, our privacy, our relationships, our education, our sense of well being etc. As a result of not really understanding what he was telling us is that very little has been done to put corrective measures into place in our culture to deal with these fall out effects.
In actuality, Marshall McLuhan gave us an early warning sign of the coming consequences of our new technology on our way of life. He knew early on that the development of perceptual skills would be essential in helping us deal with the speeded up information flow we would be experiencing. He even gave us information as to what we can do to deal with the massive influx of information in our lives. He knew that our educational and social, political system etc. were far too centralized, and cumbersome, to be able to react quickly enough to deal with our new fast paced world conditions. He realized that these institutions would require considerable restructuring to make them relevant and effective in these new conditions. Patching these organizations would only make matters worse. He gave us an almost fifty years advance warning about these coming changes and yet only now some years later, are we doing something about them. As a result, we are paying a very high physical and emotional price today for not addressing these changes earlier.
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One of the main points McLuhan makes about the education of our youth is that if we would reestablish our educational system based upon an exploratory basis we could turn this educational system around and would make learning relevant once again to our youth on a much greater scale than ever before and with minimal expense. Because exploratory learning allows room for a student's own input into this learning process, it allows him or her to get more directly involved in this process. Instead of being told what to do, and when and how to do it, the student would have input into making these decisions in what they learn. Interestingly enough, all the traditional as well as the new forms of content could be adapted to this exploratory form of learning. In fact, new media of video, cd, dvd, computer etc. could be harnessed in creating outstanding learning programs of this content in which all required rote information can be presented in exciting, interesting ways. These learning programs would serve to free up the teachers time from the repetitious work of rote teaching to be able to work more directly with the students when they need help with their studies. In other words, exploratory, discovery based learning coupled with programs of relevant content would be a key to revitalizing our educational system by involving both the students and the teachers in the learning process. It would, in addition, make it possible for us to take better advantage of the new level playing field of the present flattening culture.
As far as I know there is still little, if any, work being done on a large public scale to help people to further their perceptual or exploratory learning development. This is why I consider the Minds Alive endeavor important. As primitive and imperfect as it may appear, it is at least, a beginning in this direction. Now that I have a clearer focus of this exploratory pursuit, it should get easier to get more participants involved in it. I would like to say in this regard that is only when perceptual, exploratory skill development becomes a major focus of our educational system that we will experience any real progress in successfully educating our young people to the new conditions of our times. This is an entirely different environment today than the one for which our present educational system was set up. We have tried many different experiments in the educational area, and very few have worked satisfactorily. We have, as yet, failed to develop programs that facilitate the particular skill development critical to our success in dealing with this new electronic environment. Developing our perceptual, exploratory skills is our one great hope in being able to adapt to the new environmental conditionsÑconditions which we, ourselves, have created by our own unbridled expansiveness. By developing an exploratory approach to learning and achievement that is applicable to both individuals and organizations, we can establish a firm base, a foundation upon which perceptual skill development on a large public scale can occur. If we are to speed up and improve the development of this kind of education, we need to get more people involved in this process soon. The Minds Alive exploratory approach to learning, and to play as a learning tool, can help provide a big step in this direction.
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