GOOD NEWS EVERYONE! Hell Week has passed and the third issue of The Iron Warrior is in your hands. What could be better? I want to extend a big thanks to everyone who contributed to this issue; to both my staff writers as well as all our miscellaneous contributors. THANK YOU!
Before I get onto the meat and potatoes of this letter, I would like to correct some of the mistakes from last article. I was happy to see that there weren’t as many blunders as last time but two things need to be corrected. Firstly, Keven McNamara’s article entitled “Sponsorship and Capital Improvements” has a misprinted date. Sponsorships applications are due June 28, not July 28. Good news is, you still have two more days to get those in, so not all is lost! Second, in Nachiket Sherlekar’s article entitled “Entitled Web Series, Book Club, Space Janitors”, I forgot to fix two typos that slipped their way into his article, which he specifically pointed out to me. The second last paragraph should read “web series” not “we series” and the last paragraph should read “That’s a tasty chicken shawarma.” With all the headlines and bylines correct this issue, my goal for this issue is to make sure all the corrections sent into me are implemented. Perfection may be a long ways off but there’s always little things you can improve on that will make newspaper better.
With decoupling off the Engineering Societies’ agenda and no more birthdays coming up, I was at a bit of a loss on what to write about. I would like for each of these articles to have some sense of meaning, a message, something the reader can take away with them and reflect on. Maybe that’s a bit too ambitious for me, since I don’t think I am a very skilled writer and I don’t think I explain myself through text very well. In an attempt to write something meaningful this week, I decided to talk about something that I am very passionate about: online video and its ability to educate and build communities.
I am sure we have all heard of websites like Khan Academy, a lovely corner of the Internet dedicated to delivering free, word-class education to anyone with web access. Khan Academy and sites like it are a great way to reinforce concepts you are learning in class but also explore other topics you may not have the opportunity to learn in a traditional classroom setting. With continued efforts of educational websites, the concept of a ‘traditional classroom’ might change altogether. Right now, our education system is, for a lack of a better word, broken. From grade school right up to undergraduate university, any course you take is typically taught to the lowest common denominator. Those who are struggling must find a way to grasp the concepts lest they be left behind while those who are comfortable with the class turn to doodling on scrap pieces of paper while the lecture takes place.
Where can we find a common ground where both extremes can benefit? One solution comes from, you guessed it, online video. Students, rather than being assigned homework, would be assigned videos to watch at home. Traditional homework problems would then be worked through in class, allowing the teacher to assist anyone with questions about the assignment. The role of the teachers transforms from that of a lecturer to more of a tutor by supplying guidance to those who need it most. I don’t think that every lesson lends itself to being taught through video, I have watched enough online education content to believe that it could replace a significant portion of what is taught in school today.
How does this address my previous question: how does this help those we are struggling and stop the doodling of those who are bored? In the best case scenario, those who are struggling to grasp a concept can re-watch lessons and answer some sample questions online to reinforce concepts. Student discussion forums could be put in place to encouraging students to ask questions online, allowing fellow classmates to answer said questions. Students that are comfortable with the subject matter can work ahead of the lesson plan, watching videos ahead of time and completing assigned problems at their own pace. Testing can become an issue when students have the opportunity to learn material ahead of time. Do teachers have a single test for each subject or do they write up two or three tests per subject, allowing those working ahead to test their knowledge at an earlier date? These are questions I don’t really know how to answer but are a big concern when considering such a drastic change in the way we learn. It may be a pipe dream, but I really do think that the future of learning (at least at the grade school level) lies somewhere online.
While online video can be used to educate our youth, I am much more interested in how it can bring people together and build communities. While sites like Reddit can bring people of common interests together via subreddits, interactions feel very abstract with most conversations happening through text. I’d much rather listen to someone’s opinion then read it; that’s why I enjoy things like TEDtalks and YouTube over Reddit. I am particularly fond of a YouTuber that goes by the name of Ze Frank. Just over a year ago, Ze started producing YouTube videos for a how he called “a show”, a play on the name of his previous video collection call “The Show”. Videos range from things like faux documentary-style video explaining fabricated facts about random animals to him sitting in front of a camera talking about his options and view points on a particular subject. The latter videos are my favourites, some of which I have watch multiple times on multiple different occasions. Listening to people talk about their experiences, what troubles them, how they deal with both success and failure, helps revitalize my faith in humanity, something that can be pretty beaten up after spending too much time on the internet. Listening to people like Ze puts life into perspective, helps me ground my thoughts and reminds me that other people experience the same things I do. The thing I like most about Ze’s videos is his attitude towards answering questions. He doesn’t pretend to know everything. Ze always seems to empathize with his viewers, taking a point of view that is realistic and critical of assumptions that we might have.
In one of Ze Frank’s recent videos, entitled “On Starting College”, he responds to a grade 12 student anxious about going to college. It seemed like a fairly generic question, a student moving from a small town to Seattle in search of a higher education, nervous about “the end of [him] and the beginning of who [he] will be.” Even before he tries to answer, Ze comes out and says “… I’ll try, but I don’t know if a lot of this is advice, more like confusion.” Ze also goes on to talk about fear and how it casts a strange light on life, manipulating our perspective and warping our reality. The fantasy that university is the “best time of our life is just that, a fairytale that people tell to quench our fears. The truth is that we create our own worlds in university, we are ‘world makers’. We create how we interact with other, what our interests are and what we do. We create the world around us and what the world sees of us.” Right now, we all time to create a world that fits with the things we are interested in and the kind of relationships we want in our lives. Does that not sound exciting? Surely more exciting than trying to fit into a world that has a bunch of rules that you try to bend to fit into.
Eventually, Ze does come out with some clear advice: “Be generous, be kind. Tell people when you like something about them. Get to know a lot of people… I would do things with your body. Exercise-y things and sporty things. It’s a good time to do things with your body.” Simple advice, I’m sure you’ve heard something like this before, but it’s also very simple, something that can apply to everyone. These are things that are not insurmountable, things that you can work on everyone. The best advice he gave, at least for me, was to not ask too much from new relationships. We are all trying to fill voids in our lives, but not everyone is going to fill them. That is something that I have struggled with throughout university, trying to find relationships to make me feel ‘whole’, when really I should be trying to find what I can do to make myself feel whole, not searching for others to complete me.
I find many of Ze’s videos aren’t meant to outright answer our questions but, instead, force us to reevaluate our perspective and put new questions into our minds. Some of you, like myself, might seem swimmingly lost, but I am sure we will become un-lost. There are people out there that say the right words at the right time, but they are lost too, and they are just better at hiding it. Let’s create our own world and get un-lost together. DTFBA.
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