Monday, February 4, 2008

Overcoming the obstacles of change

So, I already stated earlier that education is an adaptive process, constantly evolving. But, so much gets in the path of this evolution. One is paperwork, and policy implementation. A big problem with changing things is that it can not happen instantly. Silly formalities always get in the way, like paperwork and approval. Even if the change is feasible, don't expect it to occur instantly. This is a huge problem with education right now. How can it constantly adapt to the times if it takes 1-2 years to get new policies implemented. Because then education will always be a year behind. There is also the obvious problem of ultra-conservative opponents. For example, if the board of trustees at a school is debating a new technological change, this makes no sense. The entire board consists of digital immigrants, unlike the student population, which is made up of mainly digital natives. Thus, the people making the decision are biased, and can not accurately represent the student population. They will tend to be more conservative, and the change will be very hard to implement. An example would by trying to convince senior citizens to vote against Social Security- not going to happen. Ever. Education needs to keep up. Look at how computer processor speed has gone from MHz speeds to GHz speeds in just 20 years. Education can not lag behind, for the students won't be keeping up either, and that is something we can not and should not have.

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