Jim Shimabukuro uses Rupert Murdoch’s quote “We have a 21st century economy with a 19th century education system” to pose a question of what should 21st Century Education look like (http://etcjournal.com/2008/11/03/174/) “what are the key elements for an effective 21st century model for schools and colleges?”.
However, what he is essentially asking us to do is perform an act of voodoo. He’s encouraging us to start thinking about what would make our education similar to our vision of what the 21st Century Economy looks like. Such exercises can come up with good ideas but unfortunately this one is very likely to descend into predictability. People will write in how important it is to prepare students to be flexible, learn important skills to compete in the global markets, use technology to leverage this or the other. There may be the odd original idea but most respondents will stick with cliches. Because that’s what our magical discourse about education encourages most of all (this sounds snarky but I really mean this more descriptively than as an evaluation).
There are three problems with the whole exercises.
First, why should we listen to to moguls and venture capitalists about education? They’re no more qualified to address this topic than any random individual who’s given it some thought and are more likely to have ulterior motives. To Murdoch we should say, you’ve messed up the print media environment, failed with your online efforts, stay away from our schools.
Second, we don’t have a 19th century education system. Sure, we still have teachers standing in front of students. We have classes and we have school years. We have what David Tyack and Larry Cuban have called the “grammar of schooling”. It hasn’t changed much on the surface. But neither has the grammar of English. Yet, we can express things in English now that we couldn’t in the 1800s. We use the English grammar with its ancient roots to express what we need in our time. Likewise, we use the same grammar of schooling to have the education system express our societal needs. It is imperfect but it is in NO way holding us down. The evidence is either manufactured or misinterpreted. Sure, if we sat down and started designing an education system today from scratch, we’d probably do it differently but the outcomes would probably be pretty much the same. Meaning, the state of the world isn’t due to the educational system but rather vice versa.
Third, we don’t have a 21st century economy. Of course, the current economy is in the 21st century but it is much less than what we envision 21st century economy to imply. It is global (as it was in the 1848 when Marx and Engels were writing their manifesto). It is exploitative (of both human and natural resources). It is in the hands of the powerful and semicompetent few. Just because workers get fired by email from a continent away and stocks crash in matter of minutes rather than hours, we can’t really talk about something fundamentally unique. Physical and symbolic property is still the key part of the economy. Physical property still takes roughly as long to shift about as it did two centuries ago (give or take a day or a month) and symbolic property is still traded in the same way (can I interest you in a tulip?). Sure, there are thousands particular differences we could point to but the essence of our existence is not that much changed. Except for things like indoor plumbing (thank God!), modern medicine and speed of communication – but the education system of today has all of those pretty much in hand.
My conclusion. Don’t expect people to be relevant or right just because they are rich or successful. Question the route they took to where they are before you take their advice on the direction you should go. And, if you’re going to drag history into your analogies, study it very very carefully. Don’t rely on what your teachers told you, it was all lies!