Each year at the GLEF meeting, George Lucas spends about 45 minutes with us talking about education and answering our questions. What he said this year was in that Level 3 area. To paraphrase, schools as we know them are going away. Not that we won’t still have physical spaces and teachers, but that the way we do school is going to have to change, will be actually forced to change by the Web and other technologies. That the questions we should be asking (and these are the ones I got listening to him talk, not words out of his mouth) are should we still be sorting kids by age or by discipline? How do we truly individualize instruction around kids’ interests and passions? How do we redefine the school day? What do we really want to assess and how do we assess it? Why should we bring kids together for physical space learning when much of what they can now learn doesn’t require it?
J.Randolph Radney on 22 Feb 10I was rather amazed at the implications of this video in terms of where public education came from. Then, I was discussing this with a friend who said they had been exposed to the same ideas when he was in a course on the history and philosophy of education at the Univ. of Ariz. in 1970. I find it disturbing not just that the philosophy of education has such roots, but that it has been known for such a long time. It seems that this would provide some sort of imperative for improvement and change. What do you think?
Dr. Nellie Deutsch on 22 Feb 10I have been a critical observer of the educational system since kindergarten. I am amazed that I became a teacher in the public school system as that was the last thing I had considered. I had initially wanted to be a dancer but left for Europe to study art. I left Toronto right after high school when life stepped in. I became an English language teacher to adults in a foreign country due to unforeseen circumstances. How strange! But, I never gave up. I have been doing all I can to break the public school system from the inside. It has been quite challenging, but with some terrific personal rewards.