Technolandy

Day 2 (of SOL 2025) Summer of Learning… Dear Dr Kennedy @chrkennedy

In his annual year end blog, Chris had some good questions… here is question 

2: How do we ensure we are preparing students for their rapidly changing future rather than the education system we experienced?

I love this one because way too many years ago my son pointedly asked: if schools are about preparing us for the future, where is the course on YouTube (as a resource, as a source of income)? I get frustrated when I look at our curriculum’s lovely course New Media (senior language arts) and neither graphic novels nor YouTube formats are listed in what students are expected to know… but oral texts – the oldest form of media is mentioned in the context of protocols for ownership of First Peoples oral texts…

I teased earlier in the year that maybe the ‘book fad’ has finally come to an end and we could return to the OG of communication – oral/aural focus – especially with so much media being now available through audio/visual means. https://technolandy.com/2024/12/09/day-67-of-2024-25-maybe-this-reading-words-fad-has-run-its-course-to-read-or-not-to-read-op-ed-for-theatlantic-and-edutopia-to-consider/

I also see classrooms still getting set up in very traditional ways – rows and columns facing the teacher… or today the mounted projector/touchscreen… I still advocate for moveable spaces and much prefer my projector on something that can be moved to face the other three barriers… and I will also share that one of my favourite seating setups was where students chose where their desk/table/group would sit in the room – it was chaotic – but is the goal about enhancing student engagement in the environment or making things easier for the custodians – which has been an argument for mounting projectors/screens ~ and I know the custodians who work with me know that I do NOT go out of my way to make things more difficult for them… and in some ways, chaos allows a rethink for other things – such as the tidying process…

I am also finding myself arguing more and more that the ‘convenient for us’ banning of screens (and thus shadow banning AI tools) is only further alienating this experiment called school from the lived present, let alone a rapidly changing future. I love that some teachers (shoutout to Marcus Blair) are looking at modelling and exploring the power of AI – I was just commenting that this still feels like the uncomfortable banning and arguing about calculators in the classroom – first when they were affordable enough that everyone could have one – then my TI SC-10 (graphing calculators were banned by definition – imagine that! Now they are integral parts of the math experience as slide-rules once were when they were the apex of math tool)was challenged because it was really close to the descriptor that they banned… now all the power of a calculator is essentially embedded in phones, but despite that schools are asking/requiring that families buy a duplicate of that app – though I’d argue if they didn’t want my kid to use the tool I provided, then they should make their more acceptable tool available … as often as needed. This might be why not just anyone should hire me…

So – we are relying on old tools in an environment that we are saying peaked in the 1870s for the 22nd century learner… I know that I recently pointed out the hypocrisies in education – including ‘what makes sense on paper does not usually translate into action’ – and yes, sitting in rows, learning the same thing at the same time and repeating it on a same-as-everyone-else task makes sense… in an assembly line mindset… but we know so much more about neurology than in the pre-confederation era and sometimes more chaos is needed to get to a sense of order.

I agree with thinkers like Will Richardson who are pointing out our students need to learn a lot more about climate change (for understanding and to ease some anxiety caused by uncertainty – especially as weather events become very different than the seasons I experienced as a youth); From his free ebook: https://futureserious.school/manifestoedu To put it bluntly, the vast majority of school communities around the world have been turning away from, ignoring, and/or actively denying the harsh realities of this moment. They have lacked the courage to fully unpack and interrogate the implications of these new realities on their legacy systems and practices. In doing so, they are leaving our students ill-prepared not just to negotiate what’s coming, but to be equipped to mitigate the impacts. Full stop.

Sir Ken points out that students need more time to explore the “Why” things are – especially in the world around them… and I think that means learning how to use screens and even social medias… as the powerful positive force that they can be – as I reflect that even books were once seen as calculators were – a distraction that was rotting the brains of youth… 

School has never been good at reflecting the current lived experience – it’s the nature of systems to be slower to pivot to new landscapes… but maybe we should at least specify YouTube as a communication and career format for exploration in curriculum and in practice… and take advantage of the pocket sized tool that is the greatest equalizer to disrupt education , or – another Landyism: or we continue to be “blockbuster” looking at, and choosing to ignore “Netflix”….