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Living Life in Fast-Forward
ctwxman writes "A year and a half ago my boss approached me, asking me to finish some college courses to get certification in what I've been doing for the past 20+ years. The courses are offered by Mississippi State University. Since I live in Connecticut, I am taking my lessons on DVD and videocassette with tests, quizzes and helpful advice from TA's online. It didn't take me long to realize how s-l-o-w the whole lecture process was. But with WinDVD4, I started ramping up the speed. It didn't take long to get to 2x normal speed. Other than the lectures taking half the time, I didn't miss anything. Yes, the speech is a little clipped, but these are college lectures. There are no speed demons delivering at the MSU lectern. I posted my 'discovery' to our online student bulletin board and found many other students were scared of the idea. But, for me wearing headphones (important I think), these hyper lessons are just as good as watching at normal speed. Now, The New York Times (sacrifice of eldest child required) has legitimized my claim with this article showing how and why others are rapidly jumping on the high speed watching bandwagon."
I think that one of the reasons why you may have been able to digest the information at this faster speed is because you're already well-experienced in that area. Naturally, anyone who's been working with X for a number of years is already familiar with most of the concepts. Me, I could easily watch most computer-related lectures in double-speed and absorb 99% of the information easily. Change subjects, though, and the increased speed might be more of a hindrance.
This could seriously level the academic playing field for folks who learn better from lectures than from books. In college, I know I certainly had an easier time in many classes than my classmates because I preferred to learn from the textbooks and other reading materials rather than the lectures. Since reading isn't limited by the rate of speech of the author, you can cover more material in a given time from a book. Plus, books are random access; it's much harder to scan through a recorded lecture for something you wanted to hear. However, I know a lot of people who seem to really need the narrative provided by a lecturer to get the material. Given the speeds at which the article claims young adults are capable of comprehending spoken material, that no longer needs to be a disadvantage.
:) )
Now, all schools have to do is make lectures non-mandatory (so that students can save time by listening later at high speed, of course.
Society is moving too fast as it is - and you want to speed it up even more.
Careful thought and consideration is an important aspect of learning critical thinking - not how much you can cram into your brain at one sitting.
I see two things happening:
1. People are quick to jump to incorrect conclusions more than I remember in the past.
2. People don't stop and smell the roses in their relentless pursuit of *?
Reminds me of a parable:
A young bull and an old bull are at the top of a hill, looking down on the herd of cows.
The young bull says to the old bull, "lets run down there a meet a cow!"
The old bull responds, "lets walk down there and meet them all."
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Some people can only learn in a traditional (i.e. long boring lecture) setting. That's the way it's done in the US system in public schools and the majority of private schools so kids get trained to learn that way by default.
Personally, there are some subjects in which I need to be -taught-, not just given the info. I'm not naturally good with math, so I need extra attention and to go to every lecture. Humanities and social sciences come easily for me and I can learn those completely on my own. It also helps that I genuinely like humanities and social sciences. Since I don't care for math and hard science, I need extra structure in the process of learning it to make sure that I "get it."
If we were all so satisfied back then, why was all of this built? At some point a person looked around at a world that extended less than fifty miles from where they were born and said, "Is this really it?" They weren't satisfied, and they weren't willing to sit there and accept it. They built things. They created new technologies to extend their capabilities and reach. They adapted new ways of learning so they could discover more, learn more. Sure, it wasn't all from some great altruistic desire to be better. Some sought conquest, others money, but all of it came from a deep underlying lack of satisfaction with the status quo.
I don't want to be content in the way you describe. I like having a fire to learn more, to solve problems, to push the barriers. Sure, a moment or two to savor a new love is a good thing, but so much the better if I can have that time because I was able to learn four times as much in half the time.
+1 Insightful to you.
The problem with the old way of doing things is that with everything else that a college student, especially a non-traditional one, is expected to do the requirement that they read the material beforehand is impossible to fulfill. Eliminating lectures just makes this even more since you have NO chance to learn the material.
The 20 year old social darwinists that have always had straight A's and no lives will pipe up and say "waah, college is hard, do it or go be poor. And vote Bush" but when you have kids, a full-time job, and a home to take care of, there just isn't any time.