 In this post I am offering my perspectives on how education today remains firmly entrenched in what is often called the Factory Model, which was designed for the Industrial Revolution. The majority of students at that time were educated to prepare for work on farms on in factories. This is an obsolete model of a by-gone era. But it is still with us today, well into the 21st century:  Now, take a look at the video below that was taken in a high school classroom in Texas in May of 2013. Notice how the classroom is set up. Notice the bare walls. Notice that students are seated in rows - the Cemetery Method. Notice that there is nothing on the students' desks. Where is the teacher? She is literally barricaded away from the students. The reason the student in this video erupted in frustration was that the teacher refused to get up and help a student with a question she had about the "packet" of materials they were assigned to do. According to the students' testimony online the teacher was playing Candy Crush on her computer. Probably not many teachers do that. But, probably a lot of classrooms are set up and run in this manner - it's just "how we've always done things". The rows of desks, packets of materials containing many facts to memorize, etc. There are definitely no project-based, student-centered activities happening here. This video was recorded by a student using his phone; it was immediately uploaded to the Internet. Please do not take my sharing this video with you as an accusation that teachers are lazy. That's what this student said in the title of the video, and in this case, was probably correct. Most teachers - the ones I've known - are extremely hardworking, dedicated and caring. My point in sharing the video is to illustrate the factory model still in place. Furthermore, the point is that students in the 21st century are frustrated with the factory model. They know better! Research has shown that the reasons 7,000 students drop out of school every day is that a.) school is boring, and b.) school is not relevant to their lives. What are we going to do about that? Ignore it? I hope not! If you visited 100 schools this semester you would probably see very similar classrooms! The crux of the problem as it stands today, in 2016, is this factory model. This is the result of over 100 years of inertia and more recently, the NCLB, RTTT and the CCSS. Our schools have become nothing more than test prep centers; perhaps test prep factories is more accurate. Teachers' jobs are to ensure that the students memorize as many facts as possible, as quickly as possible, and hopefully remember as many as possible for the test. Basically, we are force-feeding students discrete bits of information, with no regard as to their interests, skills, experiences or even the fact that they are human beings and not machines. This whole paradigm, the factory model, began when schools adopted the Scientific Method created and marketed by Frederick Taylor in his monograph, Principles of Scientific Management published in 1911. Charlie Chaplin, one of the most innovative filmmakers of all time, and a social critic, said it best: That scene was about the "Eating Machine", from the film, Modern Times (1936). The factory owners were trying to make everything, including eating, as efficient as possible. The Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and financial conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in Chaplin's view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization.[1] Aren't we force feeding our students facts in the same way? What comparisons can you think of between the Eating Machine feeding the Little Tramp, and today's standardized testing mania and our students? Both the Little Tramp and our students are powerless; notice that Charlie Chaplin is trapped/bound in the seat; he has no choice or voice. Do our students have any choice or voice in what or how they learn, or any choice related to standardized testing? The testing and test prep is forced upon them just as the meal was forced upon the Little Tramp. Did you notice the expressions of horror and confusion on the face of the Little Tramp? What expressions appear upon the faces of today's students in relation to testing? If we go back and check our university courses on Learning Theory, we will recall that real learning is not something that we "do to students"; rather, it is something that students DO - through trial and error, inquiry, making connections to previous experiences. According to Piaget, Montessori, Dewey, and many more, learning is experiential and exploratory. Memorizing massive amounts of facts is not learning. Additionally, all our students already have access to any facts needed right in their pockets. Below I have listed some of the ways we are maintaining the status quo of the factory model. Then, I offer suggestions of what a 21st century model of education should be, and recommendations on how we can transition education into the 21st century. What are we still doing that needs to go?
"First people shape the buildings, then the buildings shape the people." Winston Churchill 
What we should be doing instead . . . thinking "Wow, I could've had a V8!" |
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