Education: Today and the Future

Are our schools providing the education and skills to encourage the proper growth and development of students? Do they use the proper methods to provide students with the ability to succeed in life outside of school? The videos, Creativity: Design in the Making, A Vision of Students Today and Design 2.0, address these topics and how they relate to the current times we live and work in and the potential future. Are we designing the curriculum to meet these objectives? What should be changed?

In the video, A Vision of Students Today, a image of a student holding a scan-tron is shown followed by the asking when , outside of school, am I going to need to know how to use a scan-tron and how will this help solve the current problems of the world (such as war, poverty, disease, etc.) (mwesh, 2007). Are the teaching methods used traditionally obsolete? In the same video, an image of a chalkboard is shown and the message written on it states that chalkboards cannot provide videos or sounds. This type of teaching is doesn’t utilize all of the advantages that technology currently affords. It cannot allow you to interact live with others in the class like blogs and YouTube can. By posting blogs and videos on YouTube, a diverse group of people can interact and communicate through the use of comment areas (mwesch, 2007). This is shown in the video, Web 2.0. Websites like Flickr link people worldwide through pictures, much in the same way that YouTube does with videos and Blogs do with words and pictures and videos. Shouldn’t this modern technology be incorporated in traditional learning? Education and instruction should be about development of the students. The design of the instruction should have modern technology synergistically used to promote the growth of students in the environments that they will encounter outside of the classroom. Online videos, blogs and social interaction sites should be incorporated into education. These are powerful tools for the students to use after college and in their professional lives. Social networking provides the ability to professionally network outside of traditional methods. Blogs and videos can be used to market or advertise. Technology should be used as a tool to enhance education. Is it possible to break the stranglehold of tradition education methods in academia?

Sir Ken Robertson, in the video Creativity: Design in the Making, tackles the question of whether or not schools are killing creativity. He assesses that education just serves to mold students into professors. School is just working to enhance academic knowledge. He uses the example of a famous dancer who was suspected of having a learning disability because she could not sit still during lessons. Sir Robertson says that today she would have likely been told that she had ADHD and should learn to sit still or perhaps would have just been medicated (TEDtalksDirector, 2007). Sir Robertson also stated that around the world the hierarchy of educations has math and language at the top and arts at the bottom. You are always hearing people say, “don’t be an artist or musician, there is no money or future in that.” What if someone had convinced Mozart or Van Gogh of this? They would have deprived the entire world of their creativity and talents that have inspired and captivated so many people. Our curriculum should encourage creative thinking and talents not seek to smother them with conformity using the guise of structured, traditional education.

A Vision of Students Today’s video states that a person may be in a job that after college doesn’t even exist while they are attending college. Our education needs to be focused on developing creativity and teaching adaptation so that the students will be prepared to evolve to the needs and changes in the world and work environments. This starts by evolving education and the schools themselves. Schools should incorporate recent technology and focus on advancements. Instructional design should concentrate on the promotion of creativity and innovation. This will prepare the students and children to work towards solving the problems that face our world today and prepare them for the future.

Works Cited:
TEDtalksDirector (2007). Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? [video]. Retrieved July 15, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&feature=player_embedded

Mwescg (2007). Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us [video]. Retrieved July 15, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&feature=player_embedded

mwesh. (2007). A Vision of Students Today. [video] Retrieved July 17, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o&feature=player_embedded