Right now, I’m in the air writing and publishing this blog. Isn’t modern technology remarkable?! To be able to compose on a computer and publish to a website while 30,000 feet in the air is true innovation. The inspiring and liberating capabilities of modern technology make me even more reflective and critical about the state of modern education.
I’m flying home from a Bureau of Indian Education meeting in Albuquerque. As the keynote speaker, I was to prepare an engaging research based presentation on the topic of “Best Practices in Schoolwide Comprehensive Literacy.” Drafting a speech supported with a respected research base was the easiest part of the task. However, taking the message of that speech and transforming it into an hour of full engagement was the challenge.
I opened the presentation with these three images: a classroom from the 1920s, one from the 1950s and one from the mid 2000s. Before you look at them, let me pose to you a question similar to that I asked of my audience. If these were to be the only three images of education found in a time capsule fifty or one-hundred years from now, what story would they tell about the 90 years of education seemingly captured?
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I can’t know what you came up with, but I came up with limited fodder to build a story of much interest, at least about education. Of course I could write imaginative fictions about the people in the photos, but in relationship to education, the images fail to show any narrative progression. The primary change from era to era is superficial. Although the uniform or dress may change through time, within each era students dress quite similarly—perhaps because of a formalized dress code or perhaps out of the human sense of conformity. As the three images represent American classrooms, they tell a repetitious teacher-centered story of passive participation, of ordered learners neatly rowed to support independent working and thinking.
Don’t be defensive. I’m only making an observation. I know there are other pictures in other places, but Google classroom images yourself and see what you find. Walk through school today and see what you see. Prove me wrong. Prove that most classes in most schools are student centered places of collaborative learning. Prove that the dream Samuel Taylor Coleridge held for his own son has finally come to fruition for our sons and daughters: “that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes…:
My speech is over. The conference continues. School in classrooms around the country and around the globe are in session. I am 30,000 feet in the air publishing this blog. What’s wrong with this picture?
