FILMMAKER GEORGE LUCAS BATTLES BOREDOM IN THE CLASSROOM

He says technology is the key to revitalizing interest in learning.

As a child in Modesto, Calif., filmmaker George Lucas remembers sitting passively in classrooms and being bored beyond belief.

It was not until he attended junior college that the creator of the blockbuster Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies excelled by taking classes that interested him.

Disappointed that his elementary and high school years weren't as exciting as they could have been, he wondered how to change the educational process to make it more stimulating.

"I began to realize that you can take some of the same techniques that I learned in telling stories on film and that I saw many of my favorite professors do in a classroom," Lucas said in a recent phone interview. "Using the new interactive technology . . . you could develop ways of learning that were much more engaging than the traditional use of the textbook and the teacher lecturing in front of the class."

Interactive firm

After graduating from University of Southern California and establishing Lucasfilm Ltd., a motion picture and television company committed to dramatic projects, Lucas' curiosity for changing educational trends led to the birth in 1987 of LucasArts Learning. This interactive multimedia company makes games for Nintendo and Sega, and also for personal computers and CD-ROM.

In addition, LucasArts has developed interactive media applications for schools and homes, merging computer software with video, text, high-quality sound, animation and still images to teach history, science and other courses.

In 1991, he founded George Lucas Educational Foundation to work with LucasArts to promote high technology in schools.

"A while back at LucasArts, I decided that what I wanted to do was to show how you can make really good interactive educational tools," Lucas said. "I realized that the technology wasn't there for what I wanted to do. And as I got more into it, I realized that once you introduced technology into the school, it changes a lot of the ways that things are done."

Lucas believes that the company and the foundation are trying to show what a school looks like across the curriculum.

"We do everything from physical education to history, humanities, language arts, math, science."

Programs for school

From his workplace at the Skywalker Ranch just north of San Francisco, Lucas helped create school programs such as "Life Story: The Race for the Double Helix; GTV: A Geographic Perspective on American History"; and "Paul Parkranger & The Mystery of the Disappearing Ducks."

Another program called MacMagic is an experimental venture to explore ways to teach language and history skills to ethnically and academically diverse students using their personal experiences and backgrounds.

The foundation is developing a series of videos to illustrate how education can flourish with these types of programs.

Next year, Lucas plans to have the videos shown on television and distributed to schools and organizations that are working to make changes in the educational system.

"The videos really show what the schools will look like so that everyone involved in schools can see a different picture from the one that we've grown up with and the one that most people see, which is kids lined up in desks in front of a teacher standing before a blackboard," Lucas said.

His goal for the videos is to show a world where students have telecommunications connected to all kinds of libraries, data banks, experts of all kinds and other students from around the world.

"The nature of textbooks and the nature of ways things are taught will be very different, and we're trying to get that picture out so as many people as possible know the alternatives to the way it is today."

Lucas believes the only way to bring about a dramatic change in education is to get a vision that is shared by a lot of people. He hopes the videos will help achieve this.

Vision of the future

And what would education look like if Lucas realizes his vision?

Lucas thinks that students will have much more control over the educational process if technology is intertwined with learning.

"You have control over your access to information," he said. "It's much easier to get the information that you need. You don't have to get on your bike and ride down to the library. It's instantly available to you.

"You are doing projects that relate more to real life, developing projects such as being an architect and building a house in order to learn math."

In Lucas' future, students will not be alone with their computers.

"The process encourages more cooperative learning, which means working with kids and the teacher in a more discussion oriented-type environment rather than students working individually by themselves.

According to Lucas, students will get to work at their own pace, and the class won't be working on the same level at the same time but have the opportunity to learn the subject more thoroughly.

"What the program stresses is a form of evaluation which depends on your work, rather than taking tests. . . . It will be much more a comprehensive kind of testing of your ability to use ideas than just being able to remember facts.

Lifelong process

"What this process of education expresses is: How do you gather information? Where do you go to find information? How do you evaluate that information to determine whether it's true or not, or true enough? And how do you use that information to solve whatever problem or create whatever it is you're trying to do?

"It's a much more practical form of education, which is a lifelong process. It's not something that goes on for 12 years and then stops."

And one of the benefits for Lucas is feels he is learning just as much from this project as he hopes children are.

"One of the reasons I'm working in this area is that I learned so much," Lucas said. "It's pushing the boundaries of what we know, and it's very experimental. I enjoy trying to figure out new ways of learning and how we can become more effective as teachers and students."

EDITED BY: Robin Potasnik, 19