In 1966, when I saw the first episode of Star Trek, I was an advertising copywriter in El Paso, Texas. In that fairly small market, I was present at the local television studios when we taped the spots I wrote for clients. Production was visually analog. The insert above from the first episode of Star Trek gives you the idea. The stars were walking on a stage with rocks undoubtedly made out of cardboard. The cliffs and sky was surely painted props too. Nothing was digital.
The larger picture above is from a trailer for the new Star Trek movie that opens today in theaters. We see the silhouette of a young James Tibernius Kirk against a gorgeously complex digital depiction of the future.
When I got to thinking about the contrast between how the Star Trek story was conveyed by media 40 years ago to what we have now, it struck me how little the presentation of subjects they are supposed to learn in schools has changed for students during that same period.
Having completed high school in the 1950s, I found the 1966 Star Trek production compelling. Times, however, have changed. The television ads I created back then with a few analog props have been replaced by dazzling digital commercials. Millions of school kids who will enjoy the new digital extravaganza of this year’s Star Trek movie — and are accustomed to the dazzle of digital ads – will return in the fall to essentially analog classrooms.
For educators to take on this Starship Education challenge would be a lot better than throwing huge amounts of money once again at the analog education methods our children endure:
Learning… the Final Digital Frontier. This is the voyage of the Starship Education. Its five-year mission: to explore the strange new worlds of the internet and mobiles, to seek out new ways to teach ideas and new access to knowledge, to boldly go where where our youngsters already are.
