During the development of the public education system, Horace Mann lived in a world lacking technology. Communication occurred through hand written letters taking days, weeks or months to receive. History was stored by hand writing in books. Transportation was conducted by ways of horse and carriage. Through the ideas of both Horace and John Dewey, the public education system was born. Its purpose was to develop people’s skill sets to meet the standards of America at that time. Since then, the world has a more robust technologically based environment. From the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century till now we’ve molded into a different type of society than that of our ancestors. The problem is that certain aspects of our development in society have yet to evolve. In the article written by Collins and Halverson in 2010 titled The second educational revolution: rethinking education in the age of technology, they state “Our current learning systems are in flux” (p.9). The education system needs to evolve with technology just as we have as a human race.
From the moment we utter our first words as a child, we are taught to read, repeat and regurgitate. As babies, learning a language, our parents or teachers repeat words and in turn we repeat back to them until we have memorized such words. During elementary school, we are now expected to memorize simple math, our multiplication tables, certain days of the year, simple concepts that we use in our day to day lives. During middle school, high school, and post-secondary education, what we as a society are asked to memorize becomes incrementally vast and complex. History dates from wars, the periodical table, all the parts of the brain, concepts that are now more useful to certain people than to others. The question to be asked is as such: Why memorize all these details when I can ask Google? Why do tasks that a computer can do for us? “Teaching students to solve sophisticated problems with computers will be much more important than training them to execute algorithms that computers can do for them”(Collins and Halverson, 2010, p.9). To further support Collins and Halverson, we need to be teaching how to obtain correct, proper information rather than asking students to memorize it. Almost all information we need is a finger click (or touch) away.
If we insist in changing our ideas on how to obtain knowledge, we must also change the ways we test such knowledge. Writing a three hour exams with no books, notes, or electronic devices is unrealistic. In today’s workplace, all such items are readily on hand and available. By testing a person on just memory alone, you are not assessing their true potential. Therefore, the educational system must develop a new technique to ascertain one’s skill level rather than their ability to memorize.
A survey done in the U.S. found that over a million children are homeschooled (Collins and Halverson, 2010, p.8). With the availability and the resources that the internet has granted us, parents are taking their children’s education into their own hands. There are online communities that allow for parents and their children to partake in educational actives that do not restrict them to the confines of the public education system. If a child is proficient in a certain subject, he may be given the opportunity to specialize in that area at a much earlier age than that of a public school student. This is done by the one on one education he or she is receiving and the flexibility of homeschooling. With advancements in technology, it feels as if public educational systems may become obsolete as parents continue to pursue more technologically sound options.
However, there is a downside to homeschooling that needs to be taken note of. Homeschooling may shelter a child from interactions with other peers developing poor socialization skills. Though with programs such as Skype, children may interact with each other; this is done by their own choosing. Homeschooling and technology generate an environment where conformation can be solved by just turning off the computer rather than working through a problem face to face. When a child becomes an adult, he may not understand how to handle situations where he cannot simply walk away. “It may indeed lead children and parents to take more responsibility for their education, but at the same time, their exclusion from public education means that children will have limited exposure to diverse content, values and most of all, people” (Collins and Halverson, 2010, p.4).
Homeschooling is also detrimental in that it puts the power of education into the parent’s hands. Parents want their children to have the best lives and achieve feats that they may have been unable to accomplish. This can lead to parents pushing their ideas onto their children and pressuring them into fields of education that a child is uninterested in. “This means that children may not be exposed to different views on issues and become more parochial in their ideas” (Collins and Halverson, 2010, p.8). Therefore we have to treat homeschooling as a beneficially form of education catering to some but not a comprehensive solution to the current educational problem.
Technology provides customization. We build products based around the likes and dislikes of the consumer. We allow for a product to be used in a uniquely different set of ways. In education, we have a set in stone, narrow minded way of teaching. We group everyone into age groups. We make them participate in the entirely same curriculum for the majority of their elementary and secondary education. The teaching methods used are the same for the entire class. Every part of the education system is very specific. If we are to integrate our educational system into a more technologically advanced world, we must first make education customizable. With technology and computers we can create an environment that “… can adapt to the level of the student’s ability and can provide the kinds of individualized learning environments that allow all students to succeed” (Collins and Halverson, 2010, p.8). We need to build on the skills of individual at that individual own pace.
An educational system that is currently at work and is supported by the forefather of technological advancements, Bill Gates, is the Khan Academy. At the time of this paper, the online educational website has delivered 205,769,809 lessons since being created in 2006 by Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The website uses uploaded YouTube videos to deliver a learning experience that can be viewed from anyone in the world and is translated into many different languages. There are lessons on all the major Sciences, History, Finance and Economics. The skill level of the videos range from K-12 and some first year university and college level courses. The website, http://www.khanacademy.org/, has online practice problems that are meant to be completed after each video series has been watched. These problems are recorded statically and badges of accomplishments are rewards when certain tasks are completed. These tasks can be monitored by a Coach, who is a person that can assign videos and problems to a student and follow their process via the website. The service that Khan Academy provides is completely free. Collins and Halverson wrote in 2010, “This is the time we need another Horace Mann to provide the vision for an educational system that can integrate all the different elements that are developing” (p.9). Salman Khan may be on the right track to cater to an education system that integrates technology and learning. His system allows for students to work at their own pace, be monitored by a teacher, and have the flexibility to choose which fields they want to participate in. This is the type of customization that technology allows us to do.
As it sits, the current education system is out of date. Changes must be in order. If, as a society, we continue to be narrow minded in the way we teach, the benefits reaped from technology will be insufficient. We need to find a balance between creating a new system that utilizes the technological advancements of the past decade. If we provide people the ability to customize their education and explore viable alternatives, we can continue our growth as a society. We can focus on how to use what is given to us rather than trying to memorize how it became to be. We need to let technology complement our methods of learning, teaching and cognitive processes.
References
Collins, A. and Halverson, R. (2010), The second educational revolution: rethinking education in the age of technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26: 18–27. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2009.00339.x
Khan Academy. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.khanacademy.org/