Finding Things Out Yourself

Yesterday, I found myself torn between the desire to figure something out myself and the desire to learn from people who know better than me.  It's very satisfying to retread ground of the pioneers who've gone before you.  (By the way, I'm talking about climbing, mostly). I read of Richard Feynman working through the proofs of Calculus that Newton wrote.  And I enjoy climbing the climbs that were at the edge 30 years ago in the style that they climbed them -- from the ground up, not knowing what was above them, what the moves were, how hard the moves were.  It's satisfying to know that "I can do it too".

However, I realized yesterday, that what I need to do is learn all I can from those that came before me, so that I can get to the edge were no one knows anything.  Stand on the shoulders of giants.  (Boy that sounds grandiose).  Otherwise, I'll have to content myself with just reinventing the wheel and making the same mistakes that others have made, potentially making their mistakes be in vain.

Reality TV: Classroom

I was reading about education reform this morning which discussed options for evaluating teacher, including classroom observation.  The thought occurred to me that given the cheapness of video nowadays why do we not simply record every single hour of class?  Then teachers could submit clips of their "trophy" teaching moments.  Evaluators and parents could skim through clips, sampling at random.  Parents could even see how their children are performing in class, not relying just on teacher evaluations or their children's accounts.

And another thought popped in my mind: could a reality TV show that takes place in a school work?  Shows must have a theme or conflict -- perhaps a remedial class?  Or perhaps something at an overachieving school where you have students striving to win the local debate tournament.  The "coming of age" movie genre probably has plenty of themes to leverage: the talented kid from the projects, the rich kid trying to stem the pressure of his parents to make it to the Ivies, the quiet but unnaturally gifted artist, the dedicated teacher producing results in the inner city .

I think the biggest stumbling block would be privacy.  I can't imagine many schools would want this to happen.  I could imagine its first incarnation might be at a private university which would have the prerogative to do that and would welcome the potentially national publicity of something like that.  It would probably only enter into an agreement, though, if it had pretty solid guarantees that the show wouldn't make a pariah of the school.

Which leads to what I think would be the next stumbling block: how to make it interesting without making it a simple soap opera that is most reality TV.  Even shows as seemingly inert as Top Chef jump on any romance between two chefs or play up existing relationships.  How could an education reality TV show have the suspense and captivating nature that other successful shows have, but still present it in a way that's inspiring and provides thought provoking insight into American education?  And how could it do this without being a documentary?

Well, till then, I suppose I'll have to do with SYTYCD and Top Chef.