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TOPIC .0: Obsolescence as a Barrier to Education

Lesson Element .1: AIntro to Obsolescence@

Review of the Barriers to Effective Education.

The first barrier was lack of equity.

Remember: Equality is not desirable nor achievable. Equity and fairness is.
We need to make schools appropriate to the populations they serve.

The second barrier was lack of accountability.

We aren=t paying attention to the results of our schools and rewarding or penalizing those results accordingly.

The third barrier was mobility.

Without a national curriculum, the mobility creates great problems for the educational system.
We spend up to 20% of curricular time in review simply because of mobility.

The Fourth Barrier to Effective Education is Obsolescence.

Contrast of the world we live in today to that of the past:

The New England Primer was published in 1690.

It went for one hundred years without revision.

Today, a textbook that is 3 or 4 years old is viewed as out-of-date.

The World Today is Different from the Past, But the Educational Practices We Have are Pretty Much the Same Ones as in 1790.

The format of education and the presumptions of education remain the same.

The New England Primer is a bench mark that suggests the world has changed and education has not.

Lesson Element .2: AThe Half-Life of Knowledge@

The Concept of a Half-Life of Knowledge is Borrowed From the Natural Sciences.

Same principle as the half-life of radioactive elements.

Half-life: How long it takes a half of a radioactive element to decay from one form of the element to another form of the element.
This half-life varies widely from a few milliseconds to thousands of years.
You can have vast changes in terms of the elemental transformation from the original element.

The Half-Life of Knowledge is How Long it is Before Half of the Knowledge is Obsolete.

Example: Our knowledge of the human brain.

Using 1970 as a baseline for our knowledge, how much did we know?
How much knowledge did we accumulate in the following ten years?
Ninety percent of what we know about the human brain in 1980 was learned since 1970.
By 1985, ninety-five percent of what we knew had been discovered since 1980.

What we knew in 1980 now only made up 5 percent of the knowledge present in 1985.

In 1970 we pictured the brain as an esoteric glob to difficult to understand, but then we discovered new ways of studying it. By 1985 we had learned that women think in different parts of their brains than men do.

Lesson Element .3: ABrains@

One Facet Learned in the 1970's Was the Principle of Right and Left Brain.

Although the facts were primitive, we discovered that we have two hemispheres in our brain, and each hemisphere is used for different kinds of things.

The left hemisphere is the organized part.

The right hemisphere is the more visually and ideologically creative part.

Today=s Knowledge Has Advanced Through the Use of CAT Scans.

Allows us to find specific places in the brain to help us understand specific kinds of things.

Sophisticated equipment can measure the brain area=s responses to visual stimuli.

Shows that different parts of the brain are used for different parts of the thinking process.

We have also learned that there is a real relationship between the right and left brain.

If you learn things precisely in the left brain, this helps you learn things in terms of artistic and emotional pursuits in the right brain.

Likewise, if you learn things artistically and emotionally, it helps you with scientific and rational reasoning and verbal skills.

The relationship is synergistic.

This logically leads to the conclusion that if you want to train topnotch scientists, then you need to give them more art, music and drama.

We Have Not Taken Full Advantage of Our New Knowledge of the Brain in Our Education System.

Instead of encouraging arts, drama and music as a means to stimulate scientific thought, we have encourage the public to think of those subjects as frills in the educational curriculum.

We have never fully informed the public about the synergistic relationship.

This is an example of how knowledge fails to become connected to education.

Happy brains learn better than sad brains, but schools don=t pay much attention to creating happy brains. Even though we know scientifically that the learning curve is much more effective.

Applying the Concept of Brains to that Of Philosophical Position:

Your philosophical position has a real impact on the way you treat the knowledge about the brain.

Progressivist would argue that we as educators have the responsibility of helping kids learn and that if we know happy brains learn better, then we should accept the responsibility to help kids have happy brains.

The Essentialist would argue that happy brains are interesting in theory, but that our duty is to present the information and the students responsibility is to use it. We have no obligation to worry about happy brains.

Lesson Element .4: ANew Knowledge@

How Schools Deal With Changes in Knowledge.

First: Knowledge becomes known.

However, it isn=t obvious when knowledge becomes known.
December 1903 the Wright Brothers made their first flight.
Momentous event, but at the time nobody noticed or understood that this was the beginning of some very important new things.
New knowledge is often controversial.

Second: New knowledge is not immediately accepted.

Long process from the time something becomes known until it is agreed upon as new knowledge.

Third: Once it is agreed upon as new knowledge it must be disseminated.

Fourth: Once it is disseminated, we have to agree to accept it for schools.

The more controversial the knowledge, the longer the period before acceptance.
Example: China.

The most populous nation on the Earth is barely covered in school.
We can=t come to agreement about what to teach about it except in the most cursory fashion.
The knowledge is there, it has been agreed upon, accepted, but we have yet to agree to accept it for schools.

Lesson Element .5: ATextbooks and Knowledge@

The Process of Accepting Knowledge in Schools is a Difficult Process.

Out biggest problem is that we really don=t have a cohesive process.

There is no way to decide whether something is acceptable for the schools or not.

It actually happens more by chance than by design.

There is no one to tell the textbook publishers what to put in the textbooks.

They make a best guess and let the number of textbooks sold be their guide to the correctness of their guess.

You have to generate a public interest and enthusiasm in something before many things can be added, and the public is very fickle.

Textbooks are often written by committees.

Causes long debates about what gets in and what doesn=t.

Have to consider political correctness and balance numbers of pictures of women, minorities, etc.

Massive projects which take up tremendous amounts of time.

Once written they still must be adopted by schools.

Once adopted by schools that have to be put in classrooms and teachers trained to use them.

The Entire Process Takes Ten to Twenty-Five Years From Inception to Adoption.

Only very rarely does it take less than ten years.

Lesson Element .6: ANew Systems@

The System of Writing Textbooks Requires the Schools to Be Obsolete.

The half-life of knowledge depending on the subject is from six months to five year.

The textbooks require ten to twenty-five years in process before appearing in schools.

By default, the knowledge in the new textbook is already partially obsolete.

Example: We still have textbooks which show the Soviet Union as a current political entity. It dissolved as that, over five years ago.

A Whole New Curriculum Process is Needed.

A new process of dissemination and implementation is required.

The old model: Teach the textbook and amplify it only slightly. The textbook remains the essentials of the body of knowledge you need to know.

The new model: Teachers have the responsibility to go beyond the textbook.

Danger: Teachers may be at risk if they teach something new. Never know if community or local school board will back introduction of the new material.

We Must Find Ways to Add or Revise or Discard Curriculum Elements with Ease.

We currently do not have a means to accomplish this.

Curriculum elements simply stay there and on state exams even if the information is incorrect.

We Can Take Advantage of Computers, Video Tapes, the Internet, or a Weekly Reader to Ensure as Current a Curriculum as Possible.

A weekly or monthly fifteen or thirty minute update program for various subjects could be easily made available in the media center.

The teachers would have an immediate source of current information to revise their lesson plans.

Some of the new systems could be initially costly. One problem is who would pay for the update services or new technology?

New Technology Can Introduce New Concerns.

At what point to you allow use of new technology by the students?

Should 5^th graders be allowed to use laptop computers all the time in school?

Spell checkers?

Dr. Allen would not allow elementary students to use laptops, but he would allow high school students to use them all the time.

It would make the existing inequities more obvious. If they are more obvious, the greater the chance we have to change them.

If some students have technology and others don=t, it puts pressure on the system to find the resources to provide equity for all students.

Ten years ago many English professors in universities refused to allow the use of spell checkers for submitted student papers.

It took awhile for such foolishness to die.

The same paradox exists for the use of laptop computers in high school and college courses.

New Technology is Gradually Becoming a Necessity Even in Middle Schools.

Consider that to take this course you had to have access to a computer.

If you didn=t have a home computer and modem you would have to fight for space in the ODU computer lab.
Not equitable, but can=t help prop up an obsolete system simply because we can=t bring everyone along together simultaneously.

Some math problems in middle school require the use of a graphing calculator.

The NCTM recommendations include that students at all grade levels should be allowed to use calculators whenever they choose including tests.

Times are changing and we must prepare our educational system to change with them.