Learning in a New World- Part I |
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Written by Pedro Hernández-Ramos |
Part I - Part II- Part III - Part IV
Ah, the bad old times!
When knowledge was being created by society at a relatively slow pace -up to and including the 19th century- it was indeed the case that many doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, historians, school teachers, accountants, bankers, merchants, publishers, farmers, priests and nuns, nannies, university professors, politicians, and just about anybody else could, indeed, rest assured that the knowledge base they had with them upon graduation from high school and college would be adequate for the rest of their working lives. After all, the level of research in many of these fields was fairly low, dissemination of new information was slow (usually by print), and social attitudes toward innovation and change did not begin to shift toward the positive until the second half of the 19th century. Case in point: Darwin’s theory of evolution was hotly debated when it was first published, and not just because of the “horrid” thought that man could be related to primates, but also because it went fundamentally against beliefs that had been held with religious fervor for centuries.
Education was seen as a process through which ignorant people were provided, through several years of schooling, with the intellectual tools (mainly reading and writing) to become “productive members of society”. In the late 19th and early 20th century the current paradigm of schooling was set, responding in part to the economic demands of the times for workers that could be trained more easily for jobs in assembly lines. Not being able to read and write made a job at the factory impossible and even dangerous for others -for example, from not understanding warnings.
Higher levels of education (measured as average years of schooling) have been linked to increased levels of economic activity and social well-being. The equation calculated around the world has been fairly simple: As more people stay in school longer, increasing their knowledge base and ability to learn, the higher the chances that a country's economy will flourish. This has been the fundamental reason for the massive levels of investments in educational infrastructure around the world, particularly in the second half of the 20th century.
Regardless of their location, educational institutions everywhere have followed closely the evolution of the mass media. With each new medium, "techno-enthusiasts" have made bold statements about their power to transform (for the better) education and learning. Radio was going to overcome all distance barriers. Films (movies) would add the richness of visual communication. Television would overcome distance and time by allowing the best teachers (in the typical scenario) to be seen and heard by students anywhere. Computers, starting in the 1970s, were going to transform the way every subject was taught because of their ability to process and present large volumes of information. And over the last 5 years, the Internet is said to be changing the way we work, play, communicate AND learn -according to the tag line used by Cisco Systems, one of the major providers of Internet-related hardware.
There are many other reasons, of course, but I'll stop there because those first five support the key argument I would like to make in closing. Learning is about curiosity, and by giving us the ability to recognize ourselves as immensely curious beings, the Internet will have a profound impact in our attitudes to what we don't know. For the first time, perhaps, since the printing press allowed the masses access to knowledge and information that had been limited to a few, the Internet will be the driving force that changes educational institutions around the world, and what people expect they will be able to do in order to gain access to learning opportunities wherever they are, at times convenient to them, and -most crucially- regardless of who they are.
Pedro Hernández-Ramos
You can contact Pedro Hernández-Ramos at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Part I - Part II- Part III - Part IV
http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/hernandez/hernande1.html
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