Forbes – Jordan Shapiro
“What are the biggest obstacles to changing education? Some are economic. Others are infrastructural. Few are technological. The most significant challenges are philosophical. We are wedded to particular ways of thinking about school and learning and life that are limiting our ability to best serve our children. The way we live in the world is changing. Therefore, education also needs to change. Don’t believe the popular rhetoric, our schools are not “failing.” But they are also not preparing kids to be adults (in the world we are rapidly creating) as effectively as they could. Mostly this is because we are struggling to untangle fashionable thought paradigms from essentially human ones. Some of our ideas are specific to the times in which they appear, others are enduring. Good education involves framing persistent knowledge within current structures. When we can’t untangle the timeless from the contemporary, we mask our confusion with easy arguments about technology or content delivery. But the efficacy of distribution is irrelevant if we’re not clear about what we want to teach.”(more)