Great find, Bob. I am a huge fan of Great Courses and eat them like candy, and know exactly how Gates feels when he gets fired up by a great teacher. What is so strange about this article is that he has taken such a low-tech, limiting way to teach kids instead of taking the obvious, the Great Course concept and broadening that so students could learn from teachers with whom they connect, no matter who/where they are. Why not take all these courses, the Stanford youtube course, etc. and let kids choose them online like doughnuts? Same required courses, just taught by teachers who can teach to specific learning styles and personalities. You chose the UCLA instructor, I will stick with the AP high school teacher in Kansas. Same objectives, same tested material - different ways to skin the educational cat. Gates' idea has a bunch of kids grinding down to one approach. It is clear he doesn't have a clue about pedagogy to say that his way of learning will work for most if any kids.
However, I do agree with Gates that all learning (and he did not discover this; this is a known pedagogical premise) is made easier when connections are made to what is known - and interesting - to the learner. As a teacher who prided myself on really inspiring kids in ways that grab them (Need to learn physics and calculus? Let's build roller coasters), there is an arrogance about him watching one set of DVDs and then walking into a school with the presumption that he knows what we should teach…especially since he dumbed down the national curriculum with the Common Core…probably the most boring, numbing educational program since the 1890s.
Yes, to the course he is suggesting…but why stop there…give them all to the kids…every good, willing educator on the planet.
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