Year 2060: Education Predictions

The video below, "Year 2060: Education Predictions," sponsored by the Khan Academy, discusses the ways in which education is shifting and has already made changes. The predictions made are based on the idea that our traditional model of a classroom, with rows of desks and chairs with a professor talking will completely be transformed into a place of interaction, experimentation, and hands-on exploration. The speaker, Sal Khan, proposes that in the past most of the work force was based on manual labor, some mental work, and only a small majority in the field of creativity and the arts. He believes that now we have a more even playing field due to the industrial revolution but as our technology progresses there will be a huge jump to large number of people working through creative means and only a small minority involved in manual work. As this shift is taking place, the speaker proposes that our classrooms will as well. He explains that instead of a GPA type situation students will be moving to a model in which education is based on personal achievement and ways that students move along in their learning at their own pace and in their own way. The credentials will be based on fixed high standards, based on a portfolio of projects as a "transcript." Essentially, based on this future work model where most are working under creative means, employers will be looking for physical evidence of what someone has created, jobs that they have done, or impacts they have made in certain positions. He continues on to discuss the role of the teacher as a "mentor." A mentor for students can often be much more beneficial as they are working with students as opposed to teaching at them. In the model presented by the speaker, there is no lecturing, teaching is based on these mentors, working together, moving around to all students and working with them. Through this students will be able to interact with all the teachers, along with the other students, based on their particular needs. The speaker concludes that due to the high expectations of students there will be a huge jump, up to 99% in the global literacy rate, giving much greater opportunities to students all over the world.

There are certainly a lot of great ideas in the predictions made by Sal in the video. Education as he describes it creates a world in which students can focus on what it is that interests them, and become experts in certain areas on their own terms. There are already schools that run like this, giving students open time to make explorations on their own and really delve into particular areas of study. The speaker is determined that this will happen even earlier than 2060 and we will start to see these shifts within the next 10 to 15 years. There are obviously many questions that arise with this model of teaching. How will be making sure students are effectively learning basic life skills? Is their contact through experience enough? How early on in education can we be practicing this model? Although it is easy to say that students in their early years of education should not participate as they need to accomplish things such as learning to read and write, isn't their literature based on the idea of learning through play? To what extent can that work? And is the exploration that the speaker talking about just a more advanced version of that? All of these are questions that came up for me as I was watching. On the other hand, as a teacher I could imagine it being quite rewarding to mentor a student and watch them develop projects on their own and learn things out of their own discoveries. As these are ideas that we discuss in class it is obvious that there is a certain level of this practice being utilized today in classrooms. I know as an art educator I imagine my future classroom to be a place where students will have opportunities to explore, using media of their choosing, creating work based on what interests them. But to what extent is that appropriate? How will this idea be translated to other subjects such as math, science, and history? Will there ever be a total shift as the speaker in the video suggests? I encourage you to watch the video and come up with some of your own questions about what is being discussed. The video shares a side to education that every teacher should be made aware of. And whether it seems to be directly part of their future as a teacher or not, it is always good to think about. Also the Khan academy is definitely a website worth exploring.



Year 2060: Education Predictions: Sal is asked to make some predictions for the year 2060