Educating the Mind in the 21^st Century

Across America the pandemic has amplified the deficits we face as a society.  From health care to the food we consume to income inequality and education the pandemic attacked with a level of stress and strain that our current capitalistic system of commerce and political democracy struggle to defend against.

 Just as the biology of the coronavirus exploits the immunological weaknesses of its victims, so too do these disruptions of our society, caused by social and economic turmoil, render segments of our communities damaged, unusable and unable to cope left to waste away.

Changes in our society can cause upheavals that will tax our ability to render judgement upon solutions or to clearly define acceptable pathways forward.  Education is in the cross-hairs of these demanding and challenging changes taking place, especially under the tyrannical rule of a killer virus.  Education is a foundational pillar helping to carry our nation forward with understanding and with the developed ability to think critically under extreme and chaotic situations like we face today.

Peoples abilities to solve problems come from their experience and opportunities to fail at trying. It is not enough to say that it OK to know but not OK to try.  What you have learned can only be valued by your increased ability to now use it creating judgement to solve problems.  The spread of knowledge is the first essential premise for any educated society, but without taking on and surmounting challenges that tax this understanding, then the effort becomes an exercise in distraction.

Projects in education critically matter.  It is a learning strategy for long-lasting methods of teaching with students being able to diagnosis and solve problems that are critical to the wellbeing of the community.  Students are given an opportunity to develop relationships and trust of other students, then implement inquiry-driven methods to explore and develop deep understand of science, social science and artistic and cultural expression.

Educational platforms like the International Educational and Resource Network (iEARN) provide educators with scaffolding that is necessary to bring forth 21^st century collaborative project-based educational initiatives the hallmark of modern education.  Projects help to ensure that students develop needed skills and abilities to be rational thinkers, develop logical and organized strategies for implementation of projects and to use their critical thinking skills to assess crucial experimental evidence.

 Pandemic and American Education

March 7, 2020 and the word comes down from the school administration that the school is closing for the indefinite future because of the encroaching national and global pandemic.  It is 2:00 pm and school ends in 40 minutes and we will not be coming back for the rest of the school year. The disorientation is immense, and students express a mixed feel of exhilaration, fear, anxiety and unsettledness.

Why not feel a bit disoriented?  It is a living situation not faced by nearly every living person on the planet.  It is our 21^st century epidemic, bringing to all of us, social, political and economic upheaval and death.

Every aspect of what you do from here on out will be from a distance.  You will physically distance yourself from humanity and Teachers will distance themselves from their students.  It is called distance-learning and everything you as an educator have fashioned together in your bag of curriculum and experience and projects will have to be digitized and placed “online”.

The conveying of experiences, knowledge, understanding and problem-solving to students will now be done at a digital distance with technology, programs, multimedia tools, internet websites and interactive programs.  As a teacher you have passed completely through the looking-glass of education and find yourself in an alternative universe.  Ways of measuring learning will forever be masked behind a computer screen and true understanding defaults to a measure how self-driven student are now more than ever before.   

Not that students were not self-driven in the physical classroom with direct human to human contact, they were motivated but with a healthy dose of humanity.  Now students gather digitally for learning sake and for understanding.  Student motivation to access resources on the Internet and within computerized programs has never been more important.  In fact, in this alternative universe of school, motivated self-directed student learning has taken command like a coup takes over a government.  It is complete.  Now, those most motivated and supported with the greatest access to technology will be the most successful.

If American schools, over the century, have held our society together in a form delivering prescribed commonality of things learned, with a good dose of systematic segregation, then this digital divide will clearly separate us to a far greater extent than can be comprehended.  Access to technology will dictate who are the winners and who are the losers.  Access, support, specialized teaching and enriching opportunities will go to the most well connect and in America that usually means those at the top of the financial economy.