Disrupting Class: Chapter Two

Okay, so I am falling behind on this project, but still hope to complete it before the conference on Wednesday.  I had meant to take the book with me to the office yesterday, so I could read it in between meetings, but left it on the kitchen table.  Anyway…

So I read chapter two of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns this morning (actually started it yesterday morning and finished it while I was waiting in the tunnel to cross the border).  As you may recall, one of the problems I had with Disrupting Class: Chapter One was that I felt it was based on a faulty premise.  I firmly believe that chapter two suffers the same fate.

The basic premise of chapter two is that historically schools have been organizations that have adapted well to the demands of society and have changed dramatically.

One room school in Bell County, Kentucky (Used without permission)

The authors do this as they describe four purposes or jobs that schooling has served since it was introduced in the United States.  In describing these purposes, they cite specific examples of ways in which schools have changed.  For example, on pages 53-54 they describe how the need to prepare citizens for a factory model of industry caused schools to transfer from institutions where only a small percentage of students attended, so places where much larger numbers (particularly at the high school levels) of students attended. While the example isn’t incorrect, I would ask you does this really represent a fundamental change in schooling?  But before you answer, let’s continue…

The authors continue citing examples, such as the movement away from one room schools to larger

A classroom from a Chicago area school (Used without permission)

buildings or the desegration of schools after Brown v. Board of Education, even the focus upon mathematics and sciences after the Soviet launch of Sputnik.  Yes, all of these are examples of changes in the education system, but do any of them represent a fundamental change in schooling?  But before you answer, let’s continue…

The authors also describe the enrichment of the curriculum to provide opportunities for all students to be able to access courses in a wide variety of areas, such as Advanced Placement, fine arts, music, sports programs, etc.. The introduction of tracks for students of different ability levels in the 1970s. Of the back to basics movement (i.e., reading writing and arithmetic – light on the first to “R”s, with a healthy dose of science added) that came about because of the rise of the Japanese corporations in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by the same push when the A Nation at Risk report was released.

The authors then discuss the rise of student achievement that began in the 1970s (because the College Board had confirmed that “average SAT scores had been declining since 1963” (p. 58).  And again, yes, all of these are examples of changes in the education system, but do any of them represent a fundamental change in schooling?  But before you answer, let’s continue…

Finally, the authors go on to discuss the testing regime that has been put in place under the No Child Left Behind legislation, and how schools have once again changed to focus upon subject areas that are assessed by these standardized test and how supports have been put into place to enable all students with a chance to succeed.  And once again I comment, yes, this is an example of change in the education system, but does it represent a fundamental change in schooling?   So, let’s answer that question…

None of these examples of change represent a fundamental change in schooling!  Regardless of which students are attending, what courses are being taught, who is creating the test, how big the building is!  None of these changes represents a fundamental shift in the teaching and learning transaction that occurs in the classroom.  As a fun way to illustrate this, above i my descriptions of all of the significant changes that the Disrupting Class authors cite I have inserted a series of pictures (and I apologize for not having the time to go creative commons on this – I acknowledge that these images are used without permission and have linked each one to the sites where I found them).

The first one depicts what one might think of when they envision a turn of the century one room school.  The second one depicts what most of us would imagine when we think about how schooling looked throughout much of the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc..  The final one, which is little more than two years old, represents what most of us will agree is representative of most classrooms in America.  What differences do you see in these three pictures?

Desk are still in rows, students facing the teacher at the front of the room, teacher standing in front of a blackboard or whiteboard, etc..  So yes, the courses may have changed, the type of students served may have changed, which subject areas are emphasized may have changed, and whether the teacher or the state writes the final exam may have changed.  But the transaction that occurs in the classroom has not changed that much (although I will acknowledge that the method of instruction found in some one room schools was much more individualized than what we find today, although my reading of rural education indicates that this had more to do with the nature of some of those teachers and not the fact that the school only had one room).

As I read chapter two, I was reminded of a quote that I often used from Todd Oppenheimer when I first began writing about educational technology.  It appears in an article that he wrote for Atlantic Monthly magazine, it read:

In 1922 Thomas Edison predicted that “the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and … in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks.” Twenty-three years later, in 1945, William Levenson, the director of the Cleveland public schools’ radio station, claimed that “the time may come when a portable radio receiver will be as common in the classroom as is the blackboard.” Forty years after that the noted psychologist B. F. Skinner, referring to the first days of his “teaching machines,” in the late 1950s and early 1960s, wrote, “I was soon saying that, with the help of teaching machines and programmed instruction, students could learn twice as much in the same time and with the same effort as in a standard classroom.” Ten years after Skinner’s recollections were published, President Bill Clinton campaigned for “a bridge to the twenty-first century … where computers are as much a part of the classroom as blackboards.”

I suppose if Oppenheimer were writing that article today he could add, “In 2008, Christensen, Horn and Johnson wrote that disruptive technology would change the way the world learns.” to his list of failed promises offered by technology.

But let me digress a bit and pick up on one of the examples that Oppenheimer uses in this quote…  the teaching machine.  For those of you who are not familiar with these devices, I would highly recommend that you watch this video:

Do the claims about individualized instruction and the power of this new piece of technology, and the impact that it will have on teaching and learning in K-12 schools, sound a little familiar to you?