In the day and age of Wikipedia and Google and self correcting editing software what would or should future schools look like? In an earlier blog I had expounded on the question of what makes for a good school or more importantly a valuable schooling experience.
I would think the latter needs to be answered from point of view of the student as well as the teacher. In an ever evolving world where iPad is king and exams are open book with unlimited content, we have already seen the shift from rote based learning style to creative thinking. Whether this paradigm should extend to its logical conclusion of total elimination of prescribed curriculum based learning there by leaving the how much of what and when of subject matter to learn in hands of every student/ parent can or should be the subject of healthy debate.
Just like my other radical idea of legalizing drugs of all kind we should seriously consider the pros and cons of having our governments spend exorbitant sums to provide sub par education. I know there are exceptions to this broad brush stroke I seem to paint but I seriously believe that idea of public investment in education is passé.
Home Schooling is not a new concept but if we can take that and improve on it to allow for building block skills development (like reading a language and adding numbers) through public - private partnerships we can improve time to market for kids growing up in the future and make them more productive. Teachers could be rewarded through the scores achieved and measured as employability in the then current market as opposed to random GPA and other metrics.
Entrepreneurial development to launch new startups could also then be part of the early cirriculum and be tied to the reward equation for teachers involved in the process. Think of it as Teachers becoming the VCs of the future.
That is content I can be content with!
On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...
Comments
Post a Comment