Accepted and Classical View

Last week Bill told us of a movie that had some great components of the learning process. This past weekend, I took it upon myself to view the movie Accepted. It went hand in hand with The Book of Learning and Forgetting. The book focuses on two different views of learning: the classic view and the official view and the movie contrasts these two views.

Accepted is about a high school grad that does not get accepted into any college that he applied to. He comes up with the idea of fabricating his own college---to make his parents happy. His small plan of just having an acceptance letter from the fake college backfires when his parents want to see the college and meet with the dean. He is able to pull it off having people play the different roles in the college (i.e. students, dean). Within his new school, he develops the program of a learning board. People can take whatever class they want---they can create the classes they want to take.

This is very similar to the classic theory---you learn with the "company you keep." You learn by doing something that you enjoy instead of being forced to take something that necessarily does not appeal to you. Yes, college does give you more selection on the courses that you take, but most of your classes fall under that category "must fulfill to meet the requirements in order to graduate." It is a catch-22.

In the end, the State Board of Accreditation allows the school to remain in existence with a one year probation period. The students were able to prove how their school was effective. Now, I don't know if any schools like this exist in America, but I think they would provide models and help to influence the classical theory in the university system of America.