Education in the 21st Century

Mae walked into her old pod room, where her own words SECRETS ARE LIES; SHARING IS CARING; PRIVACY IS THEFT had been cast in steel and dominated an entire wall. - Dave Eggers, The Circle, 2013 In his recent book, Creating Innovators (2012), Tony Wagner offers a compendium of sorts for educators and administrators looking to change their thinking about what it means to be a school in the 21st century. By this, the main question is: how should schools educate children to be successful members of 21st century society? Wagner begins by examining what sorts of skills the most innovative companies look for in new hires. In a world that is increasingly flat, as Thomas Friedman put it, students must develop new skills for careers, continuous learning, and citizenship: critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration across networks and leading by influence, agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurship, accessing and analyzing information, effective oral and written communication, and curiosity and imagination (Wagner, 2012, p. 58). While the work in this study will address most, if not all of these skills, it is important to reflect on the goal of an education. Wagner contends, as might most educators, parents, and students, that an education is a means to a more successful and productive life. In societys terms, this means a good job. The nature of the global economy has changed. More jobs require higher-level skills. More people need to go to college to acquire these skills. A change in the job market, then, necessitates a change in the nature of a childs education. There is significant value in thinking about an education in this way. It is in line with the times, and is part of the narrative that has ushered in changes in how the federal government seeks to administer education in the United States through its Race to the Top grants and it is consistent with David Colemans vision for a new

educational paradigm through the Common Core State Standards (Ravitch, Reign of Error, 2013). Even if one agrees with the list of skills that Wagner cites as laudable and important for students, as I do, it is important to consider an alternative view of why these skills are important to teach in schools. In addition to the interviews and quotes from leading design thinkers and business and entrepreneurialism gurus, Wagner also cites psychologists like Alison Gopnik who emphasize human beings innate desire to explore, experiment, and imagine new possibilities (Wanger, 2013, p. 87). He then goes on to cite famous examples of Montessori children, including the founders of Google, all of whom, presumably, learned through play. Consequently, it is worth asking what is happening to these same ideas of play in the current, testing-driven climate of the Common Core? The point of looking at these two models of explanation from Wagner is to examine the idea of 21st century skills through two lenses: the first is a business lens. What is most practical from an economic standpoint? What results in kids with good jobs? The second is the lens through the human perspective, one that aligns more fully with the aims of the progressive education movement: how is it that kids like to learn, just by virtue of them being kids? How do schools look to create environments that are nurturing to a childs innate sense of interest and curiosity in the world, rather than stifle it? Nowhere is the full expression of these ideas more evident than in the simple yet profound task of block building, a mainstay of early childhood classrooms in progressive schools since Caroline Pratt first invented the unit blocks in the 1920s (I will return to the connection, as I see it, between block building in the younger years and technology in the upper elementary grades in a subsequent chapter). The question remains: what does a school that prepares kids for life in the 21st century look like? The answer, if one scans past and present education circles, seems to be one where the

emphasis is on making critical thinking, collaboration, and innovation the backbone of school curriculum. These ideas have been a mainstay of progressive education since Dewey. Interestingly, many proponents of the Common Core standards emphasize similar ideas. INSERT DAVID COLEMAN QUOTE ABOUT CRITICAL THINKING HERE. While educators may agree on the ends, the means is where there is a significant divergence. On one hand are the current crop of reformers who argue that standardized tests and technology are the way forward. On the other are what seem to almost be a set of traditionalists. While I do not seek to offer a full summary of the arguments for each side here, I do intend this paper to be a reclamation, to a certain extent, of the role of technology in shaping education. It is simply that my interpretation of the role of technology differs sharply from those reformers, mainly tech companies and policymakers, including a large number of notable technologists and entrepreneurs. What is in vogue for educators looking to bring technology into the classroom today? On one hand is the maniacal focus on which device to use. The 1:1 buzzword creates the important question that people of all ages seem to treasure in self-identifying as a tech user, one that is played out again and again in advertisements for the big three of tech: Microsoft, Apple, Google. Are you an iPad or Macbook school? What about the surge in Chromebook schools? Is Microsoft making another play for this market with their new tablets? Inherent in this discussion is a terribly complex undercurrent of implications: is the district wealthy and concerned with image (Apple) or cash-strapped yet savvy (Google)? The most egregious example of this mentality, and the foreboding consequences of just such a mentality, is the Los Angeles Unified School Districts 1:1 iPad rollout. In the past few months, the much-heralded move has been embarrassed by delays, cost overruns, and management concerns. The move to

embrace devices as a panacea to solve the greater problems of failing schools and balance the income and opportunity disparity backfired tremendously. The project was embraced so forcefully that the district leadership at the highest levels did not even consider the possibility of keyboards to help kids type. (Presumably someone on a lower rung of power did, but nonetheless it raises a significant question of whether or not education officials truly considered the impact of a billion dollar technology purpose on the actual children and classrooms themselves). Beyond that, there have been a number of other extremely troubling reports, including what amounts to price collusion between Pearson (the sole provider for textbooks and other educational content on the devices) and Apple, perfectly captured in this beautifully Draconian PR maneuver: PEARSON REFERRED A REPORTERS QUESTION TO APPLE, WHO DECLINED TO COMMENT). Districts and schools need to heed the lessons from LAUSDs disaster. In short, one can sum it up in a simple axiom: it is not the device; it is how you use it. Jared Lanier, the writer, thinker, and artificial reality inventor offers a compelling case against the risk of lock in when it comes to technology. While he principally addresses design concerns for software, this same concept could be applied to decisions by administrators and IT specialists about which device to pursue for a school. While it is important to consider a school standard, there should be no reason why schools cannot embrace multiple devices for multiple needs. There may be a compelling argument (many, in fact) for having one device for younger children and a different device for older. There are compelling reasons why a teacher might use an iPad for one class assignment and then switch to a Chromebook later in the day. There may even be, gasp, a reason to use no technology at all! The essential thing is for schools to remain in control over these decisions, contrary to what most companies eager for a foothold in the $3 billion? education

market want. In other words, what many technology companies are offering is the same content delivered through new methods. Pearson still wants teachers to assign only their science textbooks, but rather than ordering a new tome every five years, now the technology benefit is that the school gets the latest version every three years, along with a subscription to Pearson. In ways, this is an improvement, but only in the most cosmetic of ways: lighter backpacks, updated materials to reflect the latest research, ease of classroom storage. There are other more series improvements: multimedia delivered to help language learners and multimodal learners. Yet schools cannot adequately address the growing needs of students if the instruction underlying the technology remains static. What does watching a video help if in the end all students are asked to do continues to be filling out a worksheet and memorizing information for the weekly quiz? Marketers would also thrown in there that the teacher can really see the benefits for assessment, even offering the idea of a real time sense of where each individual child is. But this is what teachers does every moment of a class! A lesson on fractions draws blank stares? Time for another example followed by individual conferencing. A girl writes a sentence in response to her book and tries to turn it in? How about you explain what you think about the characters actions what would you do in a similar circumstance? Teachers are constantly assessing and reconfiguring their lesson throughout the day. We do not need to log into an account on our computer to help us with that! In fact, using this type of digital assessment would be disastrous as it would remove the human element of learning. Moreover, there is no space for nuance in misperception. An iPad math app may indicate to a teacher that the child got the wrong answer on #4, but just like on a standardized test, there is no feedback for why that child erred in his response. Is it because he did not understand the concept of multiplication? Or did he simply make a calculation error? Is the child a language learner and the word greater confused him?

The digital assessment tool, just like the multiple choice test, offers no insight here, and for the purpose of assessing a students ability, its value is inherently limited. I am the first to argue that technology makes my life easier as a teacher (I will expand on how and why in later anecdotes from my pilot project), but the question at hand is does technology inherently make a classroom a better experience for the learner. From my perspective, the answer is a resounding no. If we look at just a few cases of where technology is not meaningfully and skillfully woven into the technology, we can get a sense of where some of the greatest challenges, and thus opportunities, lie for teaching with technology. By removing the agency of teachers and schools in how to use technology, we risk the lock in that Larnier describes and that is so beautifully captures in Eggers novel The Circle, where one seemingly innocuous decision after another portends significant concerns for the expanding role of technology in all facets of life.