Educational Theories of the Past
Despite all the talk and spending on new technologies and programs, the day-to-day methods by which students work and learn have not varied that radically since the early twentieth century. While there is more technology and a greater emphasis on cooperative learning, educational expectations of schools and students are largely unchanged. A student enters a grade, works through a standardized curriculum, memorizes a lot of information, passes both informal and formal assessments showing her knowledge, and then moves on to the next year. Talk to an older person about his educational experiences, and you might be shocked at how similar this is to what he experienced.
In the 1920s and 1930s, educational reformer John Dewey espoused a view that might be familiar to many teachers today. He claimed that education that was strict and authoritarian without making connections to the students' experiences was a major problem with schools. Teachers must make these connections to keep students interested.
The question that needs to be answered is: Does the old method of education make sense and actually work in today's world? Many would argue that the answer to this question is an emphatic no. The future of education needs to be adaptive, interactive, relevant, and challenging. Only by rethinking the entire educational system can you get to a point where this becomes reality.
