We sometimes take for granted that what we see around us now will just continue as-is into the future. Huge institutions and bureaucracies in education seem to have such a solidity that we forget everything changes.

Here’s an article that offers a glimpse into a world where education moves away from what we have today, and towards something based on the potentials of a more improvised and “grass roots” and DIY version of learning. With the full access to cloud learning tools in affordable “home size” venues, and empowered adults in the mix who might not even be classified as “teachers”, things might look like a lot different. They might include, for another example, advanced versions of current “Community Schools” thinking.

Ivan Illich wrote “Deschooling Society” circa 1970. That’s almost 50 years ago, but one wonders if this “hey, let’s open a school” approach was foreseen by him way back then? 

From Wikipedia:

Full of detail on programs and concerns, the book gives examples of the ineffectual nature of institutionalized education. Illich posited self-directed education, supported by intentional social relations in fluid informal arrangements:

 

The book is more than a critique—it contains suggestions for changes to learning in society and individual lifetimes. Particularly striking is his call (in 1971) for the use of advanced technology to support “learning webs”.

 

“The operation of a peer-matching network would be simple. The user would identify himself by name and address and describe the activity for which he sought a peer. A computer would send him back the names and addresses of all those who had inserted the same description. It is amazing that such a simple utility has never been used on a broad scale for publicly valued activity” ~ Illich.

 

Illich argued that the use of technology to create decentralized webs could support the goal of creating a good educational system:

 

A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.

There are some significant overlaps here with the idea of Community Schools noted in Kris’s recent post on Community Schools in Las Cruces. 

This experiment noted in the article below is presented here not as THE blueprint for educational change, but more as an imagination activating device that suggests just how far outside the box me might dare to think. IF our task is not to fight the old model, but to create a new model that makes the old model obsolete.

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