The Foundation of Education
The Foundation of Education
This week I watched multiple Ted Talks on different points but all connecting back to the foundation of the education system as a whole. The first Ted Talk was by Geoffery Canada, an American educator, author, and social activist. In his talk, he was stressing about how over the last 56 years or so nothing about the education system has changed. We're still facing the same issues with class and how many people have access to a good education, and we're even still teaching the same way. So why are we teaching in a way that we now know to not be productive? The common version of "stand and deliver" teaching has been shown to be increasingly less and less compatible with today's students. If this statement is has been backed up by research then why aren't we changing the way that we teach to accommodate kids now.
Sir Ken Robinson explains this in his Ted Talk, "Changing education paradigms". In this video, he goes over how the foundation of education was made during the enlightenment period and during the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution bit plays a part in how schools were designed. Schools run off of bells, each study in most schools is split up into different sections of the school, each grade or age group of kids is produced each year. The way schools run is very similar to how a factory would have designed it. The enlightenment period had us change from occasionally getting some form of private education to the public, government education that almost everybody has to go through.
We haven't changed how we teach, we are trying to teach for the future using the past. According to Robinson, this is " alienating millions of kids who don't even see the point in going to school". This statement isn't completely false. Before, going to school was the basic way to get to college, which then leads to a degree that would guarantee you a job. Now, even if you have a degree you aren't promised a job. This isn't helping to encourage kids to attend school if they think they can get a good job without one. Now students are struggling in school because most schools teach for grades and not mastery; this is a large issue. Teaching for grades over mastery forces students to continue to learn information that often is built on the information that was previously taught. If a student has to learn off of something that they don't completely understand then it is leading to inevitable failure or possible large setbacks in their learning.
So, knowing that using the teaching methods of the past for the future isn't compatible in today's society why don't we change things? Changing the very basics, or fundamentals of the education system would be like trying to start it up from scratch. Instead, we keep pushing ourselves to try and learn using outdated methods that don't work for many students. Eventually, this type of teaching won't be able to keep up with the ever and fast-changing economy of today and we will have to explore new ideas of how schools should be run.
Works Cited
Chau, Derrick. "Grades must reflect mastery, not just effort." EdSource, 10 Mar. 2019. Accessed 7 Jan. 2021.
Green, Holly, and Kristi Hedges. "Time For An Education System Makeover." Forbes, 5 Mar. 2013. Accessed 7 Jan. 2021.
Jorgenson, Olaf. "Why Curriculum Change Is Difficult and Necessary." National Association of Independent Schools, NAIS, 2006. Accessed 7 Jan. 2021.
Robinson, Sir Ken. "Changing education paradigms." Ted Ideas worth spreading, TED, Oct. 2010. Accessed 7 Jan. 2021.
There is a lot of good detail in his blog and I really enjoyed the part about how we haven’t changed how we teach... great work Abby!
ReplyDeleteDo most of your teachers use a "stand and deliver" approach, where they just lecture all block? I would say that is much less common now than even when I went to high school.
ReplyDeleteSome do and some don't. It also tends to depend on the lesson or the subject because some subjects are harder to make interactive lesson plans or demonstrations.
DeleteYour blog certainly gives a lot for your readers to think about. I wasn't sure just how far back the origins of our teaching formats went. Although possibly still considered the "stand and deliver" model, do you really feel that classes today are primarily the teacher upfront lecturing with little input from the students? Compared to when I was in school anyway, classrooms today are rather interactive, utilizing such methods as small group and whole group discussion, etc. You did an excellent job of explaining where this concept came from and that research says it's not working, but what are some suggestions as to what may work better, if this outdated system were to be replaced?
ReplyDeleteSome teachers don't and some do. What goes along with that is some lessons are harder to make interactive and not just a "stand and deliver" method. I don't really know how I'd myself change how schools run because I don't think there has been a lot of really large discussion of how things would be changed.
DeleteHi Abby,
ReplyDeleteI've watched that Sir Ken Robinson TED talk and I would like to comment that while some aspects of education remain the same (bells, etc.), lots of instructional methods have changed at the K-12 level. After observing my daughters' college experiences, though, I find that anecdotally, at least, that is where more change needs to take place. Several of their classes were the "stand and deliver" approach. Higher education needs to make more changes to instructional methodology, in my opinion. Best,
Mrs. Zecha
I feel like a lot of college classes are more a "stand and deliver" type of format. I didn't read about how colleges are so I wouldn't know how I'd change anything about it. I also think that it might be difficult because some college classes can get large.
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