The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century brought with it big changes in the American education system. Public schools were designed to offer a standard education to the masses of people headed toward factory work. Previously, individuals learned their craft as apprentices in on-the-job training from an early age. The Industrial Revolution changed the apprenticeship model for education into a mass-schooling model. The classroom teacher became the vehicle of knowledge for large groups of students. The scope and sequence of the textbook dictated that which students should learn. Blackboards, paper and pencil, and, later, overhead projectors and copy machines were (and still are) the technologies supporting this system.
In Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution of Schooling in America, Allan Collins and Richard Halverson describe a new revolution, called the Information Revolution or the Knowledge Revolution (Collins & Halverson, 2009). This new revolution is changing the way we produce, consume, communicate, and think. “While the imperatives of the industrial-age learning can be thought of as uniformity, didacticism, and teacher control, the knowledge learning technologies have their own imperatives of customization, interaction, and user control” (Collins & Halverson, 2009, p. 4).
The work we do has changed in profound ways. Instead of manual labor, human beings are engaged in operating and interpreting computer equipment. “The computerization of work puts a premium on skills of accessing, evaluating, and synthesizing information” (Collins & Halverson, 2009, p. 5). Although technology is expanding all around us, the school system has remained largely the same as when the mass-schooling model was stabilized in the 19th century. Although our schools are making efforts to incorporate technology, there are incompatibilities between the demands of the knowledge revolution and the traditional school.
Collins, A. & Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking education in the age of technology: The digital revolution and schooling in America. New York: Teachers College Press.
Great introduction to the topic! I think you are addressing an extremely important issue. The way younger generations communicate and engage in tasks is changing rapidly, and so is the "typical" workplace in the U.S. Schools are having a hard time trying to keep up, which creates a gap between what students do in school and what they will be expected to do in the workplace.
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