Reflection Sixteen

“I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is 
practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so 
primitive.”   John W. Gardner
What is your view of education and the future?  Do you think it will take twenty years for 
such a dramatic shift?  Do you agree with this quote or disagree?   Explain.  Post to your 
blog.

Do we look back twenty years and say this? No, in fact, we can look back to the Greeks thousands of years ago find aspects of their education that are not far removed from present practice. Of course we consider some aspects of education from previous times barbaric, but not all of it all of the time. This quote is hyperbole.

I expect that education will become less formal and more open to people in general. We can already see this happening. Websites such as coursera and udacity offer classes from universities all over the world for free and some top universities (Stanford, MIT, and Berkeley for example) offer lectures and materials to the public for free through YouTube and their respective websites.

I also expect that it will be more common for individuals to identify with what we call a life long learner. People will work in and be experts in multiple fields over the course of their lives. In general there will be a more widespread understanding science and the philosophies and the world will be a better place for it.

Reflection Fifteen

“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”  Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers was a humanist along with Maslow.  What does this quote mean to you personally and as a teacher and/or student?   Explain.  Post to your blog.

Learning how to learn is an important part of learning as well as education. Anyone who has studied more than one foreign language will note that the second was easier to learn than the first. This is because the learner has developed strategies for understanding and is more flexible concerning the new facts of the second (third) language.
Possessing the quality of an educated person, though, is much more than just knowing a large body of facts about the world. An educated person is able to apply facts about the world to a changing world and to new experiences. An educated persons person carries the tools of adaptability.