Are conventional ideas about education actually counterproductive? Does advocacy based on those ideas set back the cause in the long run?
The Globe and Mail ran an op-ed about education on Monday that got me on the subject. “Creating a culture of learning” addresses the problem of school dropouts, citing the success of Chinese immigrants and their hard work-oriented background.
Thomas Friedman’s latest column is in the same spirit:
Just a quick review: In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. dominated the world in K-12 education. We also dominated economically. In the 1970s and 1980s, we still had a lead, albeit smaller, in educating our population through secondary school, and America continued to lead the world economically, albeit with other big economies, like China, closing in. Today, we have fallen behind in both per capita high school graduates and their quality…
I’m 100% agreed in the need to promote learning, but I’m worried by attempts to shoehorn today’s round students into the rectangular holes of yesteryear.
Most of the proposed solutions seem to take the form of top-down programs and incentives — as if education is inherently unpleasant, as if people won’t be willing to learn unless we entice them, or trick them with some extrinsic reward.
When we tell people what to learn and make the purpose of education something outside of it, the fundamental lesson learned is how to be taught: “don’t learn unless someone tells you to.”
Learning is not the same as being taught.
Education until now has been about teaching — which is to say, it was about the teachers, administrators, and the curriculum. Education of the future will be about learning. — which is to say, it will be about students and the opportunities they will have… the opportunities the will create for themselves.
Education of the past was about preservation. Education of the future is about potential — and the potential to generate potential… and the potential to generate potential potential…
We’re all students. It isn’t just a platitude anymore. We’re all learning to learn with the new tools made available by the web. The new models for education don’t exist yet. We have to discover and create those — and it’s often the youngest who are best positioned and equipped to make those discoveries.
What we need now is genuine passion for learning. At the very least, don’t get in the way...
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Hello Brian
..really enjoyed your snapshot of podcamp london. I agree with your comments above about education. It can’t be just teacher driven anymore – new education requires learner participation and learner leadership.
Here is a link to an article that I think supports your perspective. In particular the chart created by the Gronstead Groupon the third or fouth page of the .pdf encourages a more engaged learner centred approach for education:
http://www.gronstedtgroup.com/pdf/T%2BD%20Dec%2008,%20Gronstedt.pdf
Tapscott’s “Grown-up Digital” also supports this perspective.
Dana Morningstar
dmorningstar@fanshawec.ca
Thanks for the link Dana. Something else that backs that up is research by Tammy Erickson, she blogs here about generational differences.
Did you see Jonathan Kochis’s presentation about social media and youth at PodCamp?
Yes I did see Jonathon’s presentation and thought it was very effective. I liked that he had statistical evidence and he is right: teens and adults use social networks differently and not always for the same reasons. I have two teens who can barely email, though they are on facebook and msn everyday.
In my teaching experience I see young people who use social media. Very few think about what social media means. To them, it simply “is”. They have no comparator experience. For most Canadian young people the Internet has been around as long as they could read and write and view.
There are some very creative digitial content producers in the Fanshawe student group; however, right now they are not the majority of students (unless you count facebook updates as digitial content).
All in all , Kochis’ presentation lingers and is causing me to re-think how I approach some assignments or lessons in various courses.
I’ll check out the Tammy Erickson generational differences information you suggest. I have seen several formal presentations on this topic. – Thanks for the suggestion
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