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John M. Eger
Van Deerlin Endowed Chair of Communication and Public Policy
School of Journalism and Media Studies
Executive Director, International Center for Communications
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive, PFSA 160
San Diego, CA 92182-4522
619-594-6933
619-594-6910
Fax: 619-594-4488
jeger@mail.sdsu.edu
http://www.smartcommunities.org/
http://www.smartcommunities.org/guidebook.html
http://www.iicom.org/intermedia/july2001/eger.htm -- His paper on Smart Communities in InterMedia


Dear John:

(1) Many, many thanks for your new interesting essay.

You are really proliferating writer!!

Dear E-Colleagues:

(2) Pls visit the following related list distribution;

(02/22/09) Marriage of art and science
http://tinyurl.com/dakmbm

(3) Be Creative — itÕs really FUN!!

Best, Tak

ATTACHMENT I

 

From: John Eger <jeger@mail.sdsu.edu>
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 10:02:07 -0800
To: John Eger <jeger@mail.sdsu.edu>
Subject: I thought you might be interested in this  UT oped

Educating for the Knowledge Age

By Joyce M. Gattas and John M. Eger

2:00 a.m. March 6, 2009

T.S. Eliot, in his 1915 poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," asked rhetorically, "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" He could not have imagined how we have increased the world's database of information.

According to some reports, information has been doubling almost every year since the turn of the 20th century. Today, given the proliferation of the Internet, the computerization of news archives and libraries available on the Web, literally thousands of references are available at the click of a mouse. The challenge today is not acquiring information; it is determining which information is relevant.

Addressing a Fordham Foundation education conference in early 2007, Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowments for the Arts, said, "We need a system that grounds all students in pleasure, beauty and wonder." He continued, "To compete successfully, this country needs creativity, ingenuity, innovation."

Knowing what education should be doing in an age where people will likely "have 10 to 14 jobs by age 38," according to the U.S. Department of Labor, has greatly complicated matters. Further exacerbating the situation, according to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley, is the fact that "the top 10 jobs that will be in demand (don't yet exist)" and they will be "using technologies that haven't been invented. In order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet."

Clearly we are headed into a new and uncertain future. The worldwide economic meltdown is slowly sharpening our awareness on the issue of education.

Last year, a bill called the "America Competes Act" was signed into law by President Bush authorizing $151.2 million to help students earn a bachelor's degree in math or science, $125 million to help math and science teachers get teaching credentials, and additional monies to create more educational programs at the kindergarten through 12th-grade level to align math and science curricula in preparation for college.

In truth, we need a huge infusion of capital and a change in attitude for both art and music, and math and science. Importantly, we need to define a well-rounded education and to make the case for its importance in a global innovation economy.

The evidence for such an effort is slowly mounting.

Robert Root-Bernstein, a biochemist and MacArthur Prize winner, completed a study of 150 eminent scientists from Pasteur to Einstein. His findings were startling to those educators lobbying for more emphasis on the sciences for he discovered that nearly all of the great inventors and scientists were also musicians, artists, writers or poets. Galileo, for example, was a poet and literary critic. Einstein was a passionate student of the violin. And Samuel Morse, the father of telecommunications and inventor of the telegraph, was a portrait painter.

Perhaps as a consequence of Harvard's Howard Gardner's pioneering research on "multiple intelligences" and the idea that all children learn differently, various practical applications are evident throughout the country.

Five years ago, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted "Arts for All - A Regional Blueprint for Arts Education." The program's vision is for every public school student in the county to receive an effective K-12 education, of which the arts are an important component.

High Tech High in San Diego is another remarkable example of art infusion, indeed infusion of all the various disciplines. High Tech High is a charter school well funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gary Jacobs family (founder of Qualcomm) and many San Diego businesses. It consists of six schools: three high schools, two middle schools and one elementary school with a total of 2,500 students and 200 employees. Every single graduate has been admitted to college, 80 percent to four-year institutions of higher learning.

It is unique among charter schools in that it creates "personalized, project-based learning environments where all students are known well and challenged to meet high expectations." There is no math class or art. Rather, those disciplines - still taught, still relevant - are curriculum-infused, integrated if you will - into larger questions such as: "How does the world work? Who lives here? Why things matter? Each semester the entire faculty and student body are assigned a topic they work together on and that draws on all the disciplines, thereby forcing students to work collaboratively on real world problems.

Larry Rosenstock, CEO of High Tech High, quotes Sir Ken Robinson when he says, "Creativity is as important as literacy and should be given equal status."

Maybe we really need to go back to basics and ask what the purpose of public education is. And what do we consider an educated person to be? Maybe we need to change the vocabulary of the educational establishment, change the lenses in the camera, and in the process awaken to the competitive demands of this new age.

Gattas is dean of the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts and Eger is the Van Deerlin Endowed Chair of Communications and Public Policy at San Diego State University.

© Copyright 1995-2009 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. * A Copley Newspaper Site
--
John M. Eger
Van Deerlin Chair of Communication and Public Policy
School of Journalism and Media Studies
Director, Program on the Creative Economy
Director, Smart Communities Program
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
PFSA 361E
San Diego, CA
92182-4522
telephone 6195946910

 

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