> Is slides really worse than lugging a ten-pound book around all day and reciting emotionless, boring, seemingly irrelevant information?
Yes, a thousand times worse.
Because it's not fixing the problem that the subjects are boring :)
I do a lot of work with kids and education; you simply cannot, from my observation, teach from a screen - unless the participant is highly capable of research it doesn't work.
We need to fix the physical teaching - not replace it with a worse unfixed method!
ErrantX, I don't think slides are a problem. They are simply one more medium teachers may use to communicate knowledge. Now, they are certainly not a replacement for actual textbooks, but they do have their uses.
I do think you hit on a very important topic, although indirectly. You state that the subjects are boring. I've had my share of bad teachers in all different levels of school (I'm a graduate student right now). The problem is not that the subjects are boring. The problem is that you have teachers that either have no interest in teaching the subject, or you have teachers that don't know how to teach the subject. I spend most of my time studying financial mathematics, but the most interesting class I ever took was one on American History in high school. Everyday was a brand new story, something intensely interesting. I certainly learned my American History, as I got a 5 on the AP test way back in the day. I also have to give credit to the same teacher for giving me a deep respect for all of history.
Yes, a thousand times worse.
Because it's not fixing the problem that the subjects are boring :)
I do a lot of work with kids and education; you simply cannot, from my observation, teach from a screen - unless the participant is highly capable of research it doesn't work.
We need to fix the physical teaching - not replace it with a worse unfixed method!