When will society be ready to leave behind school?

[Desu]

I've been toying with some ideas recently.

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1) Is the current model of public school as a socioeconomic institution necessary during this age?

2) Could we think of public schools as transitional social institutions that will one day (perhaps sooner than we think) become defunct, obsolete, and be replaced by something else that will serve a similar purpose?

3) Maybe school isn't that bad (for most of us). However, we have to consider the school system's merits and faults in the context of society and culture.

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I don't have any hard numbers or sources right now, but:

Could it not be argued that the inception of public schools greatly increased the wealth of society, both intellectually, socially, and materially? And I don't mean as a weak correlation, but that public schools itself were causally responsible.

Intellectually, a more informed population, advances in every field of knowledge, and the creation of new ones.

Socially, increased social mobility among disenfranchised social classes (minorities, women etc.). Schools were a tool for some of these people to do things they wouldn't otherwise be able to do before. This was good for themselves, and to society as a whole who otherwise would not have benefited from what they contributed.

Materially, as a consequence of intellectual advances, economic growth. Depending on your other philosophical or political opinions, you might consider this a bad thing.

We as anti-schoolers like to imagine our world without school, but frankly it would be hard to say what exactly our society would be like without it. Public schools have been a core feature of how our society functions for over a hundred years. Our upbringing as children, our parenting, our jobs, and our social/emotional/intellectual education is built on the foundation of the public school system. School is part of our identities, and society's identity. If public schools never came into existence, our society would be completely different than it is today. Even if this system could be greatly improved, or even totally destroyed to the benefit of society, that is only conjecture. Let's not kid ourselves, none of us knows exactly what would happen if this system were completely overhauled or simply disappeared. Probably many, many things would happen. Some good, some bad.

Remember you have to consider society as a whole, even if you don't care about society and want to only worry about yourself. Many people go through the public school system, and live lives that we would consider hellish, and are totally happy and satisfied with themselves. I know that most of us on this board are unhappy with our lives, much of which could be blamed on school, but for most people in general, it seems to work pretty well.

Look at other regions of the world. Third world countries which introduce public schooling seem to provide a means for economically disenfranchised citizens of the world to catch up to first world society. It improves their lives, it improves their communities (intellectually, socially, and economically). You could draw a parallel to anywhere else. For most people (and yes I know, not us), it improves their lives, it improves their communities. It gives them a means to exist happily within society and with themselves. Arguably, yes, there could be a better way, but most people seem content with it.

However, social institutions naturally go through evolution with time, such as the way we deliver health care, educate our citizenry, allocate goods and resources, organize our families, and so on. We could think of the public school system as the method by which society thought was best to deliver education, train a workforce for the economy, and develop children. Eventually, something else will either drastically or gradually replace public school systems. But for now, the school system is necessary just because of the way society and culture operates. You can never consider social institutions (or even ourselves) outside of culture. Everything in culture influences everything else in culture.

We could speculate (and possibly even create) the forces that will cause public schools to undergo radical revision.

My speculation? Technology mostly, and entrepreneurship in non-profit education.

Briefly, I think technology will inspire changes in the public school system as communication technology advances. Non-profit educational projects are exploding, and currently, this is being disseminated through the web. As our world gets more connected, and these resources become better and more available, employers will start taking web-based education more seriously, and people will start to question why they're paying an enormous amount of money in taxes and disposable income for public schools and university.

Web-based education is limited in scope. Hands-on projects are a bit difficult to teach over the net without having a real life teacher there with you. You can certainly teach yourself, but there's also the issue of acquiring physical materials. Anything involving constructing anything... It's not really feasible to teach yourself to the extent that you can get hired to do something that requires that skill. Yes, I know, people do that, but I'm talking about society as a whole.

But it's interesting, non-profit education is very new, but I noticed it's really been exploding lately. I think we're looking at a new market that will eventually expand beyond the web and into widespread brick-and-mortar non-profit agencies. New markets in the economy always have a "tipping point" where it seems to take forever to get established, then suddenly it's everywhere.

Imagine this:

A building that is essentially Khan Academy, except it's free and open to anyone. It provides the classic education in purely intellectual subjects, but also has some hands-on workshops. You can learn some sort of skill if learning algebra or history doesn't interest you. There is a progression from beginner to advanced in all subjects. It gives children a social education too, since it's a physical place where you can interact with others. There are "teachers" but they're more like guides, and they do give lectures, but peer-to-peer and self-paced learning is given equal importance. This place is also respected by employers because it has been shown that it produces people which are economically capable in the workforce, perhaps even better than public school educated people.

Wait, isn't that what all of us on this forum have been asking for?

I think it's coming.

[xcriteria]

Good ideas. I think it's coming, too. Factory model schools had their place in society (however bad they they were for some people), but this place is already being disrupted. What will come next?

I've been thinking about how the changing role of education relates to the "guide" concept you posted about back in 2011: http://forums.school-survival.net/showth...p?tid=1587

How can people be helped to individuate, to develop Mindsight -- http://forums.school-survival.net/showth...#pid484504 -- and make sense of an evolving world where both youth and elders are making sense of as each day passes?

Ken Robinson's Changing Education Paradigms talk hits on this question of the factory model school, and the industrial revolution, as compared to the modern world that we now inhabit. Many people realize things need to change, and things are changing, but what how will each person manage the transition?



Watch on YouTube

Thees talks, from founders of Coursera and Udacity, respectively, hit on the role that the Internet is playing in opening up higher education to the world. This also means opening up more of what was once hidden away in exclusive colleges to people of all ages. I think that will lead to a blurring of college and K-12 and simply lifelong learning.



Watch on YouTube



Watch on YouTube

One of the questions with all of this is the role of teachers and how that might change. For example, arguably instead of teachers in the traditional sense, what's needed are more mentors and advisors who get to know learners as individuals in ways that they often can't in subject-bound, age-graded classrooms.

One model of high school that uses this approach is Big Picture Schools, founded by Dennis Littky. A good summary is at http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.co...nnect.html and Littky has a talk here where he talks about how messed up education is in a world where everythiing else is changing:


Watch on YouTube

I've been searching for and collecting links for much of the past two years. Fortunately, there are more and more people discussing how to change education, and more people are listening. But there are still big disconnects between what different people know and how they look at things.

One of the things that's changing is that there have been several recent massively open courses about changing education itself. One that's going on now from MIT is called Learning Creative Learning. I'm thinking of how to put on one that pulls together a bunch of the resources I've found, and puts the spotlight on the learners who are especially incompatible with factory model schools, and what they can do (or what others can do to help them) when too often, they're still trapped in factories, or when they get out, they have a lot of deschooling to do as they figure out how to use their minds. I've been in that boat for a long time, but I've made a lot of progress lately and it corresponds to learning how to make sense of all these bits of content and conversations that are going on, and what might come out of all of it.

[Ky]

People are beginning to snap out of it. We just need to keep pressing the benefits of alternatives, and keep dismissing the buzzwords associated with the public school system.

[HawkbitAlpha]

When will society be ready to leave behind school?



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[EntityCubed]

My Tech Ed said that one day we might have a chip that can be implanted into humans, and give them their required knowledge.

[Trekkie_Aspie]

The current model of public school is not at all necessary during this age. People far too often forget that school was designed to churn out factory workers or, perhaps, teachers. Obviously, in both careers, conformity is a valuable asset. In today's world, with the ability to 'think outside the box', highly prized, not so much.

Could we think of public schools as transitional social institutions that will one day (perhaps sooner than we think) become defunct, obsolete, and be replaced by something else that will serve a similar purpose? We absolutely could but the real question is should we think of them that way? Besides, there's a better institution that we have, that tends to be very cheap. It's called a library.

Maybe school isn't that bad (for most of us). However, we have to consider the school system's merits and faults in the context of society and culture. It isn't that bad in relation to what? Context is key. In relation to starving third-world children? Well, no, it's not that bad in relation to that. However, I found school to be nothing better than mildly neglectful.

I think a lot of the rest of the argument does depend on sources. I'll have a look at the rest of it but that gives you an idea.

[Potato]

when google's driverless car hits the market, do you think taxi drivers will start to lose their jobs?

[Desu]

(02-28-2013 09:26 AM)Potato Wrote:  when google's driverless car hits the market, do you think taxi drivers will start to lose their jobs?

False equivalence.

[Ky]

(02-28-2013 09:40 AM)Desu Wrote:  

(02-28-2013 09:26 AM)Potato Wrote:  when google's driverless car hits the market, do you think taxi drivers will start to lose their jobs?

False equivalence.

That, and besides, it's similar asking "When the library/the Information Age/the Internet hits the general public, do you think teachers will start to lose their jobs?"

No. The push to end public schooling lies elsewhere, I think.

[Potato]

"False equivalence."

why

"That, and besides, it's similar asking "When the library/the Information Age/the Internet hits the general public, do you think teachers will start to lose their jobs?"

No. The push to end public schooling lies elsewhere, I think."

classrooms and teachers has been completely obsolete since about every household in the country got a computer linked to the internet, but schools are still open and teachers are still getting paid because there are people who doesn't want the education system to be improved because they want to keep their damn jobs and they have voting rights and we don't. so stop holding on to this false hope wake the fuq up and do something

[EntityCubed]

(02-28-2013 09:26 AM)Potato Wrote:  when google's driverless car hits the market, do you think taxi drivers will start to lose their jobs?

Don't worry, taxi drivers can just work at McDolands, for they get paid the same. XD

I know I spelled McDolands, Mcdonalds sounds boring.