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During a recent evening of channel surfing, I stumbled across a great show on the History Channel dealing with the development of the typewriter. I knew some about the history of the typewriter, including the fact that they key placement was designed to slow the typist down so that they machine could keep up and that key jams would be lessened.

The IBM Selectric was a revolution. No more jammed keys! Instead, IBM thought of a new way to make the typewriter work better — put the letters on a ball that whirled around, striking the page as directed by the typist’s keystrokes. Not only that, but the balls could be interchanged, allowing for different fonts, etc. No doubt about it, the Selectric represented a tremendous reform in typing, allowing people to produce better documents, faster and with fewer headaches.

Here’s where business is different from school. If you check info on the Selectric now, you’ll find that the last innovations on the Selectric were in the early 80s. A twenty year run that was tremendous for the company and the consumer. The end came because consumers didn’t want better typewriters, they wanted to produce better and better documents and publicatons! While the typewriter was the way to do that for many decades, almost no one uses a typewriter now; we use our computers!

Education is stuck in a “typewriter” mentality. The government keeps trying to improve on the “typewriter” of education — which is the school model. We don’t want/need better schools — we want and desperately need better and better ways to help learners learn! Schools, like typewriters, used to be the best means to the end. No more.

My personal resolution is to help lead the transition away from the IBM Selectric mentality of improving schools, to the revolutionary possibilities that are available with a PC, online learning and a connectivist mentality!

My latest “read” has been What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. I had picked up the hardcover when strolling through the Orlando airport when I was stuck there on a 36 hour flight delay a couple of weeks ago.
I decided I’d take some of the passages that grabbed me as I read and blog about them. Of course, I read everything through the lens of school and learning. Here are some of my thoughts. I hope they spark some thoughts and discussion from some others.
Jarvis starts out: “It seems as if no company, executive, or institution truly understands how to survive and prosper in the internet age . . . Except Google” (3). Grabbed me right away. Sure seems to me that very few of the people in education in this country have really understood that notion. He goes on to talk about a “world that has changed radically and forever”. Well, not yet; not in American education at least. That change hasn’t occurred. We’re still in some sort of weird time warp.
The internet has changed everything? In education we just don’t quite understand the word “change” I guess. Most teachers, educators, districts and education organizations think the net has perhaps “improved” their world, not changed it. Let me give you a few examples. If we step back we see the same structures that have been firmly in place for the last hundred years. Every morning for about 9 months a year, kids leave home Monday through Friday and gather in a school that is within a reasonable distance of their home (reasonable in some places means subjecting them to an hour ride each way, but that’s a local decision). The daily schedule varies slightly from school to school or year to year, but those changes are administrative or cosmetic and certainly have not resulted, in and of themselves, in significant changes in student achievement, graduation or dropout rates. No silver bullet there, but the changes make a school feel that they are “reforming” and proactive. What a joke. Well-intended to be sure, but a joke when it comes to change in the last 100 years.
Look at what is going on in classrooms in the internet age. Pretty much what always has. Students go through lessons at the same teacher-dominated learning environment, teacher-determined pace, along the same linear curricular track. Who chooses the pace? The adults. Who chooses the content? The adults. Who chooses how long it takes a student to learn? The adults.
And what of changes brought about by the “internet age”? Fancy baubles on the lifeless manikin.
Two of my litmus tests for change? In 2009 every child in a classroom is given the exact same amount of time to master a subject, and despite the amount of brain-research, learning theory, and the millions and millions spent on professional development, the same amount of time is given as when my mother was a student in those same classes 80 years ago. She studied algebra for approximately 180 days. Students today? Just the same. Even more remarkable, the same goes for U.S. History. At least when she took history, it didn’t matter that the teacher only made it through WW I. Think of all the events in world and US history of the last 80 years, from the stock market crash and the Depression to WWII, Viet Nam, the Civil Rights movement, and on and on, and? Yup, still exactly the same number of days. Every other subject – same story. Same number of days. Why doesn’t this strike anyone else as being crazy?
Everything has changed with the internet? Oh, I forgot, now teachers can assign students to include internet sources and video clips in a PowerPoint assignment. Sorry if I am less than thrilled.
Who else thinks it’s insane that “SCHOOL” is unchanged in the internet age? Can real change happen? Yes, of course. We’ll get to that another day. How about some more examples of the old French proverb “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” [The more things change, the more they remain the same.]
Tom Welch
tom@twelchconsulting.com
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