Saturday, May 3, 2014

common core debate with louis ck?

Occasionally public figures to get into spats on Twitter.  Sometimes the disagreement is constructive and enlightening; more often, it's about as constructive and enlightening as a monkey scat fight at the zoo.

This morning I ran across an exchange between senior Newsweek writer Alexander Nazaryan and comedian Louis CK, who disagree about the Common Core:




Reading these gave me an idea: What if we hosted a Skype debate between the two?  I sent an invitation and within seconds Alexander answered:




As soon as I hear from Louis CK we will set a date and time.  If you're interested in seeing this happen, please: comment to this post (I'll be Tweeting a link), ping @louisck on Twitter to get his RSVP, read up on his position and Alexander's, ask your network what they'd like to see asked and answered, and let me know if you're interested in hosting and/or moderating the event (I'll do it if no one else wants to).

I'm excited to hear about this issue from public figures who clearly care about it.  I see their views (and all the RTs, blog posts, interviews, etc. etc.) as valid artifacts of a confused, concerned culture, and I think we all stand to learn a great deal from the exchange.  It's a critical error to dismiss either of these men or their perspectives just because they don't work in classrooms or aren't "experts" on education.  As Marshall McLuhan observed, "Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either."

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