Blog Post #3 C&I 579

In Response to the following blog post:

The Thinking Stick: Can There be a Revolution in Education (Jeff Utecht)

Jeff raises some interesting ideas about revolution versus evolution and students being the change agents. I wonder however if it should be what we are going to overthrow instead of who?

Did we revolt against King George III or the idea of being taxed, controlled, and generally treated like second-class citizens with no say in the matter…remember “no taxation without representation”? What we need to overthrow is the way we take new technology and ideas and adapting them to education. We need to adapt education to new technology and ideas instead. In the past technology has been “domesticated to the Industrial Revolution model of education (Rowan & Bigum, 2012).  Let’s use its capabilities to transform education instead.

You are correct in noting that it is the students (at least their needs) that are driving the current calls for change. Students have long adapted to using technology in one way at home and in a completely other way at school, but that is changing. The calls for change are louder and more frequent and pace of that change is accelerating.

I’m not sure the technology forward thinking teachers at ISTE want a revolution in the classic, or modern Arab Spring sense.  Precious few of us are willing to give up our lives or jobs. Perhaps they are tired of being called the cause of the problems in education, especially since they feel they have some inspiring answers to help address those problems. Perhaps it is an evolution of the word revolution.

At any rate, and semantics aside, I’ll settle for something in between. Not a revolution, but certainly a faster form of evolution. Step out of the way of us trying to prepare the students for the 21^st Century and no one gets hurt. We all should learn something along way. 

This response focuses on the highlighted sections of this excerpt:


What is this education revolution going to be? Who are we going to overthrow? And the biggest issue of all.....revolutions means you are willing to die or at least get fired for your cause and honestly I don't know to many teachers who believe strongly enough about what this education revolution should change into to quit their jobs. 

So what we end up with is a social evolution and I think that's what we're seeing. This is why change is gradual in education. Those of us in power; administrators, teachers, etc like our jobs...like having a job and therefore we can't cause a revolution. We can cause an evolution and that's what we're seeing.

So if teachers don't have the power to bring a revolution to education who does?

Parents? Yes....parents could decide not to send their children to school. Will that happen? I don't think so.

Which leaves us where?

Students....this is who will bring the revolution and this is who we need to be talking to if we truly believe there needs to be a revolution in education. Of course the revolution isn't coming so what we're getting is an evolution of education.

In my TEDx presentation I talk about students being the change agents....and if we are going to see a revolution it will come from them. Little did I know just 6 months after giving that TED Talk what I explained would play out in Egypt. Students and people taking to social networks and creating a revolution.