“Reimagining Education”
I’ve been wanting to write a post to organize my thoughts about online teaching. Yesterday the governor’s announcement that he’s teaming up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to “reimagine” education “in the new normal” creates an opportunity to think the issue through still more.
Cuomo and the Gates Foundation will focus on seven goals, virtually every one of which involves “using technology” in education:
- How can we use technology to provide more opportunities to students no matter where they are;
- How can we provide shared education among schools and colleges using technology;
- How can technology reduce educational inequality, including English as a new language students;
- How can we use technology to meet educational needs of students with disabilities;
- How can we provide educators more tools to use technology;
- How can technology break down barriers to K-12 and Colleges and Universities to provide greater access to high quality education no matter where the student lives; and
- Given ongoing socially distancing rules, how can we deploy classroom technology, like immersive cloud virtual classrooms learning, to recreate larger class or lecture hall environments in different locations?
“The state will bring together a group of leaders to answer these questions in collaboration with the Gates Foundation,” we are told, “who will support New York State by helping bring together national and international experts, as well as provide expert advice as needed.” What kind of experts, I wonder? Educators? Or tech giants? Among the “national and international experts,” will there be any New York taxpayers, teachers or parents?
Acknowledging that this has been an “incredibly stressful time” for New York children, families, and teachers, Cuomo compounds the stress by announcing that there will be no return to normal; rather, we are going to take an already chaotic situation in education and further shake it up: “The old model of our education system where everyone sits in a classroom is not going to work in the new normal. When we do reopen our schools let’s reimagine them for the future.”
The failures of the Gates Foundation, including the Common Core initiatives which, after ten years, have resulted in lower reading and math scores as well as deeper inequalities in learning based on race and income, have been well documented. A number of articles out today review them. His “expertise” is not defined by wisdom, educational training, or classroom experience, but by wealth — wealth, we can’t fail to notice, racked up in the technology field.
Technology has always been a part of education, of course. Books are a form of technology, as are pens and pencils. As Nicholas Carr, Neil Postman and others have pointed out, and as our various industrial and technical developments in history have illustrated, every new technology has a shaping influence on our thought.
But digital technology is what we’re dealing with right now, and critical reflection can be harder when you’re in the midst of a sea change. Generally the consensus among students and teachers these days is nearly unanimous: online learning is a pale substitute for the relational education classroom, and there will be real losses resulting from the forced school closings of recent days.
Cuomo turned off the economy with the flip of a switch two months ago, and the result is huge budget shortfalls for the many public programs and institutions paid for by taxpayers. Schools will suffer terribly. So problem #1 is that technology is quite expensive.
