Lessig’s video, How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law.

Watching this video, I realized why I love being in graduate school. Lessig brought up points that had never even entered my mind, much less been pondered in there. It is fascinating to have an entirely new view be opened up by someone’s 20 minute video on a subject that I have not thought of previously.

Of course, I’m talking about the TED talk by Larry Lessig, How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law. A number of questions and thoughts came to me after watching this video and reading this week’s required reading for our class.

My generation’s culture is one of consumerism, generally. Sure, we had artists who rose to fame singing folk music calling for change, or by participating in demonstrations where a few of us rose to the top with new thought on old issues. I don’t mean to downplay the achievements of our generation, but rather, to point out that many of the people my age use the internet to watch and listen. I really don’t think I was taught to create. When I went to school, we were taught to think but not necessarily question, to learn and to recite. When we wrote research papers in high school, I was taught not to plagiarize but I do not recall trying to create new knowledge, just to get the facts right and use proper citations. Knowledge was to be revered, not created.

Young people today use the internet, not only to watch and listen, but to speak and create. Now, the more I see and experiment, the more I realize the full potential of the internet. Knowledge is so easy to come by that we can go beyond acquiring it to trying to make sense of it and maybe create new thought on a given topic. The internet is also a great platform for our views and opinions, not only in written word, but through music and video.

How can I teach my students to create new knowledge when I don’t do it myself? This is a really tough question for me. Is it too late for me to be an effective teacher? Am I over-the-hill in education? I think the answer to this lies in how old I think I am and how old I feel. If I think like someone closer to retirement than starting a career, then yes, I’m done. But, if I am willing to learn new things and try new things, then I can learn all the new technology. I can learn to create and then, can pass that on to the next generation. A key component of this is being willing to admit that I don’t know everything before I teach it and being willing to learn along with my students and from them. Who says I’m close to retirement anyway, if I work until I’m eighty, like my mom did, then I’ve got a good 25 years left!

How can we encourage creativity while still protecting the copyrighted material of artists and scholars? I think this is a very important point. I liked Lessig’s idea of artists’ choosing to loosen the reins on their art and allowing non-commercial use of their material in the creation of a new product but there are drawbacks to that. One glaring problem came to mind while watching the hilarious videos that Lessig showed during his talk of Jesus parading through the streets of a large city singing I Will Survive and George W. and Tony Blair singing a love song to each other. If the original artist is offended by a particular remix of their song on the order of the two listed above, he or she has no recourse. But then again, when I was watching and laughing uproariously, the thought that the original artist had anything to do with that piece never crossed my mind. Therefore, in the interest of hearing the voices of our youth and having a free thinking and speaking society, I think it is important not to legislate these mash-ups and remixes out of existence just so that the original artist and his recording company are not offended. This is a complex issue and still needs to evolve. After all, 8 or 10 years of existence is newborn technology.

How can we encourage our children to be risk-takers while protecting them from predators? This question has been central to me throughout this class. I firmly believe that banning social networking and file sharing from our schools is not the answer. As a mother and a grandmother, as well as an educator, I believe that education is the answer. There is absolutely no way to completely shield our children from predators online or in person – they are all a part of our modern culture. I have always been amazed at people who think if we just don’t talk about it, it will go away, or, if we just ban it, no one will be exposed to it. We have to be willing to have frank conversations about all of these things. When it comes to the internet and copyright issues, it is no different. First of all, whether we like it or not, we have to familiarize ourselves with what is legal and what is not and teach that to our children. If we disagree with the law, then maybe the next lesson is how to protest and fight for repeal of those laws. Secondly, we have to model responsible risk-taking behavior by speaking out on issues within our local government or school district and by getting our students involved in that. Teaching our students the importance of being productive, honest citizens with the tools for creating new knowledge has to be the number one priority in our schools.