James Paul Gee's book The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students through Digital Learning examines the factors that make complex problems so difficult for us to solve. One of his assertions is that we have created institutions in order to make processes easier for us, but in doing so we also "freeze" the thought process. This results in a resistance to change procedures already in place within an institution.
As I was reading I found myself thinking of our country's education system, as it fits directly into Gee's definition of an institution. So much emphasis is placed on reforming education without first looking at the underlying structure of the system, the institutionalization of education. While it may have been beneficial in the past, we have entered a digital era. Many of the original problems faced by leaders in education of the past are vastly different today. To read more about my own analysis of Gee and humble suggestions to begin moving us forward in education, please click here.
As I was reading I found myself thinking of our country's education system, as it fits directly into Gee's definition of an institution. So much emphasis is placed on reforming education without first looking at the underlying structure of the system, the institutionalization of education. While it may have been beneficial in the past, we have entered a digital era. Many of the original problems faced by leaders in education of the past are vastly different today. To read more about my own analysis of Gee and humble suggestions to begin moving us forward in education, please click here.