Rates of Change - What does all this mean for public schooling?

One of the arguments I have for re-inventing public schooling is the rapid rate of changes taking place in society. Schools and schooling are the most disconnected institutions we have on the planet. By disconnected I mean, what is taking place inside of schools is disconnected from what is taking place outside of schools.

Sure there has been a push to get technology into schools - but that technology has been viewed and used under the same fundamental operating principle that is driving all schooling (control and compliance) and the methodologies technology has been applied to are the same fundamental concepts as traditional teaching (sit and get; drill and practice).

There is a large amount of data from many sectors of our economy and society that demonstrates increasing rates of change moving towards exponential rates of change. We see increasing rates of change in global population, in consumption of resources, and increasing pollution. We see the same types of changes in the use of technologies like fax machines, cell phones, computers, and the internet. The amount of data being digitized and stored on computers somewhere in the world has followed a similar curve.

Over the last 100 years the system of public schooling (including colleges and universities) has changed some but very little compared to the rest of society. This gap, which we can call an Opportunity Gap, continues to grow. The longer we wait to make necessary changes the worse it will get. And this gap actually explains a lot of what people are experiencing today in public schooling.

Every organization in the world is facing the challenge of managing within this environment of rapid change. In the competitive environment the amount of pressure on companies to adopt and stay competitive is quite significant. Product life cycles for consumer electronics companies in some competitive markets have shrunk from 18 – 24 months to around 6 months and some companies complete the entire cycle from concept, through development, through to the end of a products life in that time period.

More significant for leaders and managers of organizations (especially large ones) is having an understanding of the impact this kind of environment has on ‘how they manage.’ How you manage in an organization that is moving fast – staying up to speed with the rate of change – is different from how you manage in an organization that is moving slower. And managing a slower moving organization that is attempting to close the Opportunity Gap is different still.

Partly because of the fact that schools have been kept separate from the rest of society, and partly because of the slow moving changes within the schooling system, the managers and leaders in that environment have not felt the same kinds of pressures as business leaders. Until recently society has not demanded these leaders to have the same kind of competence. But that luxury is quickly being eroded. Pressure from the outside is growing and the skill sets of school leaders will be challenged significantly.

Here's a short video that makes the argument for re-inventing schools better than I could with pages or writing:

Why Can't Schools Be More Like Businesses?

I just read a blog post by Larry Cuban, professor emeritus at Stanford University that presents an argument that schools should not be run like businesses (using a business model) as there are important differences (Why Can't Schools Be More Like Businesses?)

Here is my reply to his blog post:

The model of education presently employed is more than 100 years old. Education has fundamentally NOT changed at all in that time. The model is based on control and compliance and is NOT designed for people to think (or to learn to think). Business, in general, is based on the same fundamental model. In either sphere the one thing required to make a transformation is changing the way people think.

Both education and business are social systems. Social systems are the hardest systems to 'control.' Business, as a system has been forced to change. Today there is more tolerance and understanding that thinking, creativity, and innovation are valuable assets (knowledge and skills). Education as a system has, for the most part, kept itself isolated and separate from the rest of the world.

Whether education is a business or not is irrelevant. Some people are more successful running schools like businesses. Some aren't.

What is relevant is breaking the bonds of isolation and making learning connected to the rest of life. What is relevant is changing the way we think about what school is, what its purpose is, how people learn. One size fits all is NOT a viable strategy. Educators know that. The education system doesn't.