Design of Education

We want our children prepared for the future. Designing a school in such a way to meet current needs, we increase the probability of preparing our children for the future.

Watch the following video



Understanding the Past - Factory Model
Our current education system was designed to meet the needs of the an agrarian society and factory based economy - in early 1900's.

The model represented an extension of the factory: Students were grouped according to age; students were grouped according to ability; bells were used for transitions; teachers told the information, and students regurgitated the information. The students who succeed did, and moved onto college often becoming managers. Other students, found a job at a factory or some job that required little problem solving. Schools were in the business of sorting students according to those who could make it and those who could not. Graduates could expect having 1 or maybe 2 career changes in their lives.

At the time that the model of education was created there were about 700,000 students in high school, and approximately 1/3 went onto college. Remember, these were only the students that went to high school, but most students did not even go to high school!

Fast Forward over 100 Years...2012 - Information Age
The world has changed from the days for the original design of schools. Just looking at the numbers, there are about 17 million students in high school, which represents almost all of the youth in the USA. This is a change from the 1900's when a lucky few would attend high school. Compared to the past, students can expect to make a minimum of 5 career changes in their life time.

In this day, we expect all youth to problem solve, have a global sense, and be able to self-initiate education when needed.

The days of a linear factory model and the simple agriculture are gone. If our children work in a factory, they will still need to trouble shoot because robots and assembly lines of machines do the monotonous work. If the the child becomes a farmer, there is a plethora of innovations, technologies, and societal impacts that need to be considered regularly to create sustainable model. Most of our children will hold jobs that require them to gather and evaluate information, think critically, innovate and move forward with a concept.

What is my point:
Few things are as they were in 1900; school needs to prepare our youth for a different future - one we do not even recognize. The factory model design works very well for a factory model paradigm.

Our children are in an information age and will work in a global economy. We need to design education for a different need.