5 Rarely Considered Obstacles To 21st Century Education

1. We have an information fetish that causes us to confuse education with media. Better digital ‘interactive learning content’ is great, but anyone who says it’s a fix-all is trying to sell you something.

2. We’re obsessively infatuated with our own technological creations. We forget that although our tools have gotten very sophisticated, our ways of thinking haven’t really changed so much.

3. We are really good at throwing away obsolete tech toys, but we stink at throwing away thought paradigms. This is the shadow side of our archival genius.

4. We’ve taught our kids that life is boring. And if they’re not excited and passionate about life, it really doesn’t matter how much ‘content’ they’ve memorized or how many ‘skills’ they’ve mastered.

5. Grown-ups have an inferiority complex. We’re so scared of losing our authority that most schools are set up as big lies to trick kids into thinking adults are experts.

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"What are the biggest obstacles to changing education? Some are economic. Others are infrastructural. Few are technological. The most significant challenges are philosophical. We are wedded to particular ways of thinking about school and learning and life that are limiting our ability to best serve our children.

The way we live in the world is changing. Therefore, education also needs to change. Don’t believe the popular rhetoric, our schools are not “failing.” But they are also not..."

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