Oh dear...this book thing is getting costly. It rather looks as if I might have to buy this one as well, for whilst the blurb on Alvin Toffler's new book tantalizingly tells us he estimates that innovative businesses are improving at 100 mph, civil collective groups at 90 mph, the US family at 60 mph, labor unions at 30 mph and even government bureaucracies at 25 mph, by way of a very poor report he puts education very near the bottom (along with NGOs such as the UN), grinding along at about 10 mph; however for all this coverage, we don't get to hear what he actually proposes either for speeding up the rate of change in education, or for actually improving it.
He is equally tantalizing in the podcast at TCS Daily. The bit on education starts at the 27th minute, (with his view on blogging as part of the 'prosumer economy' coming in just before that).
It would be nice to think that home education groups could fit into the category of civil collective groups - ie: improving at 90mph, and perhaps it's not a stretch of the imagination to think of the technology-driven personalised style of home education as an effective way of keeping up with the rate of change in the rest of the world.
re your last paragraph, and the other point is that children who learn to take control of their own education rather than just wait for it to be handed to them on a plate, are for more likely to be able to keep up with updating their skills as they go along.
ReplyDeleteAlso moderately important for our rapidly changing world.
'Improving'?
ReplyDeleteOK...changing...
ReplyDeleteThat's just more confusing. At least 'improving' has positive connotations. But simply 'changing'...
ReplyDeleteWhy'd I skip Buddhism 101?
adapting?
ReplyDeleteAdapting to what? New situations that have come about because of other things adapting. There is only adaptation.
ReplyDeleteIt's all just a big, interlinked constant state of flux, really.
Lol, David - OMMMMMMMMMMMM....Oh blast it, look, I can't handle this holistic energy stuff! Some institutions DO adapt a damn sight quicker than others. If you don't believe me, just try donning a wig and getting yourself admitted to my old school which has barely changed since it's Victorian inception.
ReplyDelete"this holistic energy stuff"
ReplyDeleteIt's semantics, really. Well, okay, some peeps do mean such things sincerely, but it often works well on a metaphorical level.
"Some institutions DO adapt a damn sight quicker than others."
I don't doubt it. I'm just wondering what they're adapting to/for, and whether the adaptation is a Good and/or Necessary Thing. I should probably listen to the interview to understand this chap properly, but I'm a lazy man with far too little to do already.
"just try donning a wig and getting yourself admitted to my old school"
They said if I tried a stunt like that again they'd throw the book at me. It's authoritarianism run amok, I tells ya.