The Future of Education

     The current education system is not working. It has been obvious for some time now. Drop out rates are increasing, people aren't doing their homework; they are bored, unmotivated, and disengaged. As mentioned by Sugata Mitra in "The Future of Learning, Networked Society." education was first developed by the Victorians with a goal that education will create cookie cutter beings; they will all be taught in the same manner and will know the same things. While that may have worked for them at the time, the world is a constantly changing place and with that comes ever evolving systems; including education. 

     Students are bored and unmotivated. Why? For the most part, they sit for six to eight hours per day and are talked at. Of course that is not always the case, but it is the majority. For some, that's okay. They take notes, are able to remember everything, and then perform well on exams. But that is only one part of the student body and our current educational system fails to account for the rest of the students. So much for "no child left behind" right?

     Students needs to be engaged. They need to be able to explore; find their own answers. Learning should be in a fun interactive environment; not a chore Monday through Friday with a dread for homework after school hours. Give a student the resources that he/she needs, teach them how to use it and watch what they can do. In the same video mentioned above, Sugata Mitra placed a computer in a slum area in India; a place where kids have never heard of a computer let alone internet. Within just hours, a group of children working together were browsing the internet. 

This brings me to the future of classroom curriculum. In "Future Learning" Sugata Mitra discusses the evolution of curriculum. He states that 200-300 years ago one was taught how to shoot a gun and ride a horse. If you told anyone during that time period students would not be taught how to do either of those things in the future, they would be astonished. Nowadays, shooting and horseback riding are sports. Will mathematics someday no longer be taught in schools because it too will be a sport? Sugata Mitra closes with what he believes should be the future of our curriculum: 

      "[R]eading comprehension is the most critical skill at this point in time for a      
       generation that is going to read off screens for the rest of their lives. Information              search and retrieval skills; if people know what are key words, follow a link or not,            it's a key skill. If arithmetic is an outdated skill, this is the skill that will replace it.            Finally, if a child knows how to read, if a child knows how to search for information,          how do we teach them how to believe...if we can do it really really early, we would          have armed that child against doctrine; not just religious doctrine but doctrine in all        forms." 

Giving a student the knowledge of how to search for information, read it, and believe will be some of the most powerful educational tools in the future if it is not the most important. With a virtually unlimited source of information the learning capabilities a student has with the abilities to search,read, and believe are endless.