Massachusets Institute of Technology



Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Media Lab

MAS. 713 Learning Environments

Maria Castro

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Should there be schools 20 years from now?

We all can remember what computers looked like when we were younger. We remember how credit cards operated and how mail took too long to reach its destination. Nowadays we are able to buy our groceries through the Internet, and pay our bills without having to go to the bank. As most of the things change, schools will change, or better said they are changing, they are evolving.

I believe that twenty years from now, we will have schools. However there will be changes. As we all read about, reforms have not had radical effects on the school’s system. But yet I believe reforms have left some results that are becoming permanent in schools, such as: child-center, teachers as facilitators, focused in skills more than in knowledge, etc.

In this paper I will write my opinion about what the future of schools will be. I will describe four big elements that will be common in most elementary schools as well as sharing the results of interviewing a second grade class of 24 children in Brookline, MA about what they think schools should be like.

1st Element, The way we teach.

Recently, we have been studying how kids can learn better. Last decade was called “the brain decade”. Studies about the function of the brain have increased considerably and more teachers are looking at these researches to improve their teaching practice.

The findings on how kids process the information are changing the way we teach. As teachers we will use more concrete materials, teach for all the senses, and for all the types of intelligences. We will use social learning, visual learning and we will teach in different ways.

I think teachers are becoming facilitators of the learning rather than providers of knowledge (An aside on this is that I believe this must be true for all subjects except for moral education)

We won’t lecture that much. In future schools, I see more field trips, more visits to museums, more outdoor activities, more kids teaching others kids, more laboratories and research. I see kids developing projects related to their communities and I see the curriculum as an expeditionary one.

As teachers we will look for projects that bring emotion to our kids. We know a child involves more when emotion is a component of the learning.

2nd Element, What we teach

Regular subjects in the elementary classroom are; Math, English, Science and History. Some schools have computers lab, sports classes, music lessons and art rooms. These last subjects are considered as less important; they are not seen as required. Many times we hear in schools (at least in some of the schools I have been in) “Kids that are not doing well in English will study English during music class” or we may also hear a parent may say to the teacher; If my son is good at math, he will probably be a great engineer, but if he is good in art, what will he be. An artist? How will he make money?

I think that we teach what we believe is needed by a kid to have success in life. And this is changing, what a kid needs to work in this world is more than just Science, Math, English and History. They need to work in teams, they need to be creative, to be hard workers, responsible, ethical, patriotic. They need to have social skills, they need to know about health, of being a balanced person, they should exercise, know about computers and more important to develop their own projects. We have to let kids learn about what they are interested in, and go in depth in their curiosity. As I said before, emotion should be a component of learning.

I believe schools will have more subjects and the priority will no longer be only math and English. I think projects will be the generators of knowledge and skill development.

3rd Element, Structure of School

Parents will still have to work 20 years from now; they need a place where their kids can go. I am not saying that schools are a child care center, but that twenty years from now, we will still need a place where kids can spend their time in a constructive way. Afterschools programs have shown to have great effect in kid’s lives, they are fun to kids and kids get to pick (in most of them) what they want to do. I think School in 20 years will be an all day school. What I mean is that kids will stay longer to do diverse activities.

Schools have been an independent identity of our society, I think that will change, Schools will have more relationship with museums, banks, post offices, companies, newspapers, etc.

Kids will do projects in afterschool time that are related with their communities. For example, I imagine a project between a certain bank in the city and the school. Maybe kids will be collecting money for a charity cause.

Another example can be, kids will join a restaurant and make cookies with them to sell in their schools.

In my opinion, schools will be extended in time and richer in community-school based projects.

4th Element, Technology in schools

I think that all schools are looking to have technology in them. I believe that there will not be a computer class anymore, because every kid will know how to operate a computer. I think computers will become a tool for kids to acquire knowledge and develop skills. Computers will be inside the classrooms. Computers will be a part of every subject (even in art class). We will not have as many notebooks and pencils as we do now. Schools will use computers programs more.

After, writing about this common elements that we will have in schools, I want to share the responses of seven years old children, when they were asked: What should schools be like?

The interview

I decided to interview kids about what they think school should be like, because if they are the ones that go to school, we should consider what they want their schools to be.

Their answers were:

About Subjects:

• More Math (5 kids)

• More Computer classes (3 kids)

• Computer land

• More Reading (4 kids)

• More writing, because it allows you to express your ideas.

About freedom and play:

• Kids should do classes in whatever level they are into.

• Free Choice (4 kids)

• We can skip special class if we want

• More Projects

• I like challenges

• School should be hard

• More Recess

• More time with marbles

• More time with blocks (construction)

• More time to play

• Disney world I

• School like Disneyland: a lot of rides.

About Lunch:

• Better Lunch

• Lunch whenever you want

• More time for lunch (30 minutes)

• Pancakes, popcorn and candy for lunch

• Eating cookies all the time

• Candy machines every few inches that only cost a dime

General:

• Astronomy class (this kids spoke Hebrew, so he draw a kid exploring space)

• Good teacher

• Nice principal

• Kids getting along

• Airplanes

• No Ramadan for kids?

The school that I visited seemed to be a child-centered one. I got to see kids sharing the results of their research and picking a book they wanted to read, and even in this type of schools kids ask for more freedom and play time. However the answer that was more repeated was more Maths.

The class size was 24 kids and they were all seven years old. Four of the kids were from Israel and did not speak English.

I conclude, saying that schools will not experience change drastically. We won’t say from one day to another “we do not grade anymore”, “we do not have any more subjects” or “age is not how we make groups” However I believe that some elements of permanent change will remain in schools. These elements were not the purpose of one particular reform, but are the results of trying to implement many of them. Rather than reforming I would say we are moving into a more unified direction. I do not know exactly what schools will be like in twenty years, but I believe kids will have more stimulus and their work will be more meaningful to them and to society.

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