The Media, or Press even, I think there’s a distinction, has taken a battering in recent years, and I am not here to defend it. In fact, it might seem that I am here to criticise, but given my various roles (and I am not writing in/as those) I would be foolish to do so. Instead, consider this a thought piece on my views on what is happening.
One of my favourite (and it seems none of my colleagues favourite, at least anymore), videos is this one, by a University drop-out, and once great blogger (before corporate interests through jumping his sponsorship, derailing his channel), is Dan Brown’s Open Letter to an Educator.
Dan Brown’s Open Letter to Educators
To be clear, I love this and think it is a great (if incomplete, though that is not his job, even this insight I do not think is his role), ‘feedback’ to our profession (bear with me, it is relevant). Those around me in the education field do not seem to appreciate it much, with various criticisms [see this article for some dumbass criticisms, and my rebuttal of that]:
Okay, so this is why I think it is relevant – it is a message that some of my profession are not interested in: do not value or do not want to hear.
I was taught, 20+ years ago, when I was teaching a lesson that I know no person agrees with, and fundamentally. They will go so far as to say, this is not even meant to be so, it is purely aspirational. And it is this: ‘there is no such thing as a bad student’. It is one of my favourite, and certainly something to aspire to, although having thrown it out as aspirational only, the vast amount of people will then show no interested in it even as that. Or they have a string of items that are not really good excuses about constraints on them. They are not good excuses, not because they might not be legitimate, nor because it might be ‘optimistic’ to say the least to expect them to change, but they are not justifications, they are excuses. Things they could act on and claim (without trying or showing interest in trying) dismiss. Now that’s not to say there are no good teachers, or that I can take the moral high ground here and I am perfect, or even good. But that they laugh even at the suggestion of this idea is, to me, something that worries me. I am not getting into it here [instead, I will here].
So why tell you this? There are three important points in my mind:
- Truth is no longer the question – that is no longer the role of the Media
- There are structural and functional reasons for this
- The new role of the Media
The role of the “New” Media is not to present Truth but to convince people it is worth seeking.