Another dot in the blogosphere?

Here is one reality bite: People will prefer to be entertained than to be educated because the latter takes openness and effort. So even if you can be educated while being entertained, some folk will spurn the opportunity to learn something new.

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Take this podcast episode from Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend as an example. I chuckled with every joke. But I also groaned when the hosts preferred to stick with schtick and fiction instead of learning from an expert.

The expert was a fan of the podcast who also happened to be a robotics expert. He showcased his robot named CUTIE, enjoyed the banter, and contributed to the laughter. But when he tried to point out misconceptions about robots, his hosts repeated Hollywood tropes, e.g., robots would kill all humans.

I recall fighting a similar battle when I offered a Masters level course on advanced technologies in education. Some participants were misled by movies and television so much that reality bytes on artificial intelligence and robotics seemed like lies to them.

I acknowledge that the podcast is about entertaining listeners with nonsense. It is not an educational podcast about science or technology, so it has a right to focus on being funny. 

But it also illustrates what a non-informed entity does, i.e., frame another’s expertise or knowledge through its own biased lens. While this gets the laughs, it also perpetuates stereotypes and ignorance.

Learning starts with being uncomfortable about your current state. It continues with the willingness to change. Learning becomes more likely if there is effort to make that change. In educational psychology, we might refer to these processes as cognitive dissonance and internalisation. 

One difference between teaching children and teaching adults is that the latter group has more experiences. These can sometimes hold adults back. None of those adults will learn anything if they are not challenged about something they believe or think they already know.

Pedagogically speaking, we might refer to this strategy as creating cognitive dissonance. This battle for headspace can start with an educator providing an external stimulus to learn. But the rest of the battle is internal. Students can reject something new, fit it into existing thought structures or schema (assimilation), or change those schema (accommodation).

Students learn when they assimilate or accommodate new information. The reality bite: Their experiences can make them reject it.