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This is brilliant – Music and Life, a production by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, was created using recordings from libertarian Alan Watts.
If we apply the metaphor to education, this short film encapsulates how we undermine the joys (the singing and dancing) of learning with our obsession with the finishing point (high stakes test results) and getting there in the fastest and most “efficient” way. Maybe it’s an age thing but I had only vaguely heard of Alan Watts (very famous in the 1950s and 1960s) prior to seeing this – it really made me think about realigning my priorities to make time for a bit more singing and dancing…
I’m going to steal this one. It connects to what Will is talking about in his “why do school assignments have a terminal end” line of reasoning, instead of that learning being as endless as life is long.
And that’s the one aspect of the 1001 Tales that I _do_ want to keep, back to your “prototype” idea. The “never-ending” aspect of the project. To keep it open always.
And that’s why I think the Cooling project has that sort of potential. But that’s for another post.
Funny to hear Watts called a “libertarian.” To me, in my college days, he was a “Zen beatnik” figure (my phrase only).
My favorite Watts quote, from the Zen tradition:
“When you try to float, you sink; when you try to sink, you float.”
This is fabulous Cindy – what a find!
The message behind this is the reason I have switched from Senior Maths to Middle School – the ability to be able to “sing and dance” year after year with my boys. It takes a lot of work to be able to manipulate the syllabus in such a way to to enjoy learning and to see the relevance of it all.
It reminded me of a pivotal point in my time teaching where the Board of Studies used the analogy of a race for our new Stage 5 Mathematics syllabus – “We are all in the same race track we just have different end points” – certainly not enjoying the singing and dancing along the way…
Thanks for the interesting reading material for the holidays 🙂