Technology Teacher: SCHOOL vs LEARNING

I am Re-Quoting (is that a verb?) from Scott McLeod’s post at Dangerously Irrelevant because I have to agree wholeheartedly. Scott says…

“Seth Godin is one of my favorite thinkers. I’ve learned a ton from him. Here are a couple of quotes from his post today on education.”

“School was the big thing for a long time. School is tests and credits and notetaking and meeting standards. Learning, on the other hand, is 'getting it'. It's the conceptual breakthrough that permits the student to understand it then move on to something else. Learning doesn't care about workbooks or long checklists.

For a while, smart people thought that school was organized to encourage learning. For a long time, though, people in the know have realized that they are fundamentally different activities.”

(I am not sure if I have all of the quote marks in the right places, but I am trying to give credit where credit is due!)

Seth also says there are 4 descriptions of schooling today: FREE, ABUNDANT, SCARCE and EXPENSIVE.

“If I were going to wager, I'd say that the free, abundant learning combination is the one that's going to change the world.”

If Seth is right, then what are we doing in schools today to capitalize (not in the money way) on that fact?

Whom are we teaching?

What are we teaching?

When are we teaching?

Where are we teaching?

Why are we teaching?

How are we teaching?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s. I do this so often, I should probably put a disclaimer to this effect at the bottom of every blog!]