Schooling the School

While I was reading the Tapscott article, his idea that the school system may be the problem really jumped out at me. This is something that I hadn’t really thought about before now, and suddenly it seems so strange that the educational techniques have not really changed in format. When you stop and look at how much the world has changed since say WWII, it is strange to think that the lecture and school structure have not changed along with everything else.

I have been thinking for some time how useless University is for example, and how so many people who graduate with degrees from Universities end up in careers that have nothing to do with what they majored in. This is just evidence that while we are driven to complete something, we have little opportunity to learn and use the knowledge. I think that this would be an interesting avenue for Tapscott to have divulged into. For example, I love the theatre, and I love film and stories in general, be it news, conversation or books, but there are limits to what I have to study, and what classes I can take. When Tapscott pointed out that this new generation may not be benefitting from this structured educational system I think he really had a good point. If the evidence is showing that we do not function the same way, why should we be expected to conform? I think that it would benefit everyone a lot more if we were allowed to spend our time on issues that we cared about, and then we could learn what we want to, and become experts on the subjects of our choosing. I know so many people who are really good at or know a lot about obscure issues, and now that we have so much access to information and apparently an ability to educate ourselves, we should explore that rout some more.

I remember when I was just going into high school I was having trouble sleeping, so I went to my doctor. She told me that this is a very common issue for teenagers as their sleeping patterns shift, and they can’t get to sleep until late and therefore they wake up later. She then went on to tell me that this was becoming a hot topic within some school boards because many people felt that it would be more beneficial to start school later in the day so that students would be getting proper sleep. It still seems to be a really bizarre concept that even though we seem to be aware of an issue, and how to solve it, we still don’t. This is possibly the trend with the Net Geners, and as Tapscott suggested, if the educational system was a business that lost 1/3 of their customers, it would need a major overhaul to survive.