Rethinking Education (ch 4) Reflection

Education has changed a lot since it first began, but the way schools are run and things are taught have remained the same for some time now.  In the 19^th century, many people learned by apprenticeships.  They watched other people do things and imitated what they did to learn new skills that would become their lives work.  People during this time probably thought that this would always be the way that people learned new things, but with the invention of the printing press, the Reformation, the American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution the way people learned changed.  Once the printing press was invented it made it easier for things to be put on paper in huge quantities.  This made it studying things more convenient, which led people to think that all people should learn to read and write.  Small schools were established and changed many times over the next fifty years to what we know schools to be like now.  It is amazing to me that the things we are taught in school, the way schools are built, and who becomes teachers hasn’t changed much in the last fifty or so years.  In the early 20^th century, there were not a lot of male teachers because teaching was considered a female profession.  Now there are more men teaching, but a majority of teachers are still female.  The core subjects taught in most schools are still the same and the book talked about how we may need to change what we teach to coincide with the changing world.  We may need to implement more technology classes into schools to help students learn and better understand the new technology that will be introduced as they go through school.  Being able to use technology well is going to be something all students need to learn no matter what type of occupation they want to pursue.  I think one way to make sure that students don’t fall behind in the technology department is for teachers to use technology in their classrooms while teaching.   Students will be introduced to some of the technology and will have examples of how to use some of the tools to look back on in the future.  I want to teach secondary science some day and feel that to really prepare these kids for the world that they will eventually be out in; I have to use technology to teach them.  I won’t be able to just use a whiteboard and power point presentations to make them learn the material I want them to learn.  Whether it is having students read articles or books and blogging about them, using a wiki to find assignments they may have misplaced, having a Delicious account where they can store all their cool websites or any number of other technologies, we as teachers need to introduce our students to the new technology that is out there.  In most cases we won’t even be introducing them to something new, but showing them how the tools they are already using can be used for academic purposes.