Saw this post on David Foster Wallace as literature teacher and it reminded me about how surprised I was to discover “cool” teachers/courses that existed elsewhere when I was in school. I went to a few repressive/regressive schools which were so conservative or traditional or backwards that they would not allow computers or Internet/email access to students. My literature and writing classes strictly forbid from any speculative or genre fictions. it was all classics or maybe something as modern as Faulkner, Steinbeck, or John Updike. I was always so jealous to learn that somewhere else they got to read science fiction or write horror stories, or what have you.
Now I appreciate greatly my teachers, but they were definitely working within an extremely constrained environment.
I think it is vital to teach as broadly as possible. Everything has value. As I have always said (and learned partially from my mother’s own teaching style), if you can capture a students interest they will learn. You have to open the door first, whether that door opens on to the train platform beside Anna Karenina or onto the bridge of the Enterprise with Captain Kirk. When you step through into a bold new experience, you find learning everywhere.
Learning is infinite, and that’s no jest.