2020 Vision

rothl — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:57:29 +0000

The same model of delivering instruction has survived since schools began in the United States, but the end is near. By 2020, schools will be radically different than they are today. Schools will exist as educated citizens are the foundation of our society and public schools lay that foundation. However, public education will be a more apt term than public school as the time for school will expand to all 24 hours in the day and the place will expand to wherever there are people. Technology will transform the way students learn.
Many children were homeschooled when our country began, and homeschooling has regained popularity in recent years. That trend will continue as people continue to want what they want, when they want it. With more and more available online, more parents will opt to pick and choose the education they want their children to receive. Traditional schools will have no choice but to respond to the altered demand for their services. Some parents will continue to want their children in school all day due to child care issues, but others will choose more flexible schedules.
In elementary schools, students will learn visually, auditorily and kinesthetically. Groups of students will meet throughout the day, but they will gather based on common interests, similar abilities, or preferred learning styles. The composition of these groups will be fluid throughout the day. Many schools will close. After a time during which school boards reassess their missions, school buildings will reopen as learning and community centers. Kids will meet for art classes. They’ll make music together. They’ll play sports. They’ll meet to participate in clubs based on common interests such as books, photography, games, and gardening. They’ll see academic teachers, too. Instruction will be almost completely individualized as computers will analyze students progress and offer just the right level of instruction. Every student will have a laptop (and keyboarding skills will be taught in a fun way from a very young age), and every classroom will have an interactive whiteboard. Online learning at the younger grades will often take the form of virtual games in which students “win” by mastering concepts. Students will gather to get started on new projects and to share completed ones with peers. Students will continue to read and discuss books. They’ll communicate with students around the world. Group projects will be common, and they’ll include students from many countries. Schools will be green with mostly paperless spaces and solar panels. Much of the food at lunch will come from gardens on the school grounds which students maintain. All students will learn a foreign language (often Chinese or Hindi), and they will learn it from a young age and in a way that mirrors how they learned their first language. Their second language will be used throughout the day at school, on their listening devices, on their computers, in songs, and in books. They’ll communicate regularly with native speakers of their second language.
As students get older, they’ll spend less time in school, and more time exploring the world. The old fashioned concept of field trips will occupy much of their time. However, their field trips won’t be an extra, they’ll be an essential part of their education. By exploring the world, they’ll learn what their interests are and develop them. They’ll learn onsite about businesses and factories. They’ll visit zoos, parks, and museums. All students will be required to volunteer a significant amount of time during what used to be known as the middle school years. They will choose how to volunteer their time and many will learn more about their future profession at this time. Students will perform a multitude of jobs from hospital worker to campaign aid to house builder. Whatever it is they do will not only teach them skills they are likely to use as an adult, but will also give them a lifelong awareness of the larger world, the issues in it, and their role and responsibility in helping improve the world.
Students in their middle to late teens will participate in apprenticeships. They’ll do real world work to learn about their interests. Businesses will partner with schools and government to create these opportunities for children. Many children will choose to enter the professions of their parents, and they’ll work side by side in training. Many will choose to try one field and then another. Students will train as artists, software designers, doctors, city planners, and engineers. The memorization of facts will largely be a thing of the past. Instead, education will focus on real world work and teaching children how to find, use, organize, and create information, how to solve problems, and how to make connections between information and people.
As in the past, policy makers will struggle with finding a balance between giving every student a broad, balanced education, and letting every student find and build on their strengths. The goal will be for students to have enough exposure to see the possibilities in the world and in themselves, but then to be allowed to focus on what is best suited to them.
School will be more equitable. The enormous amount of time, money, and effort which went into the legislation and implementation of No Child Left Behind will be remembered, but the law will no longer be in effect. While it was beneficial in shining a light on neglected populations of children, it was unable to live up to its name and children were still being left behind. However, teachers learned to use technology to bring them along. This, coupled with President Obama’s new, more equitable policies of the early 2010s made a difference in the lives of many children. More equity in education meant that students who needed more got more. Resources were poured into poor, urban areas. Racism and other forms of discrimination were dealt with head on. Expectations for all students were raised and support was given so children could meet those expectations. With students being able to focus on areas of strength, work at their own pace, pursue their passions, and make meaningful connections with their teachers and peers, achievement became attainable for students of all races, income levels, ethnicities, religions, linguistic groups, and nationalities.
Most college work in 2020 will be done online as rocketing tuition costs made brick and mortar schools out of reach for most families. The elite schools with huge endowments will still exist for a minority of students. Many students and teachers will never meet. Students will take classes by using a portable media player, and they’ll do so while working out at the gym or riding the bus to a job. Students will take classes on their phones while traveling. School will come to them. Expensive textbooks will have been eliminated. All students will have an electronic reader, and they’ll download their required texts at the start of each term. Heavy backpacks and their accompanying back problems will also disappear. When students do meet for a face to face class, they will bring their laptops. Teachers will send students their presentations. In addition, students will record teachers’ voices which will be coded into text on students’ computers. As students add their own thoughts and connections to their notes, links will automatically pop up, directing them to previous notes, real world applications of their learning, and other online information dealing with the same subject. Assessment will often consist of the creation of content.
At home by 2020, people’s cars charging in their garages will talk to their computers to let them know how much power the cars have. People’s computers will talk to their refrigerators and automatically compile a list of the groceries they need. Everything will be monitored in their homes, cities, states, and countries. The information will be compiled, used, and shared by a multitude of organizations. For example, when many people Google “flu symptoms,” the Center for Disease Control will be notified, and people in the area of the outbreak will be sent a warning and given precautions to take. Their daily dose of self-selected music, programming, and news will be waiting for them on their computers each morning for them to read, view, or listen to whenever they choose. Computers will be scattered around the house like the televisions of today, and all of their electronics will be connected and controlled by any of them.
All of this connection will be the only way of life that graduates of 2020 know. These digital natives will expect their adult world to be similar, and when they find ways that it is not, they’ll change them. Some of these graduates will become teachers, and they’ll continue to create and share with their students the connections they’ve formed that have made them successful citizens in 2020. They’ll teach their students how to create and share their own connections. As the digital immigrant teachers retire, some doing so more quickly than they anticipated due to the fact that they weren’t able (or possibly willing) to keep up with the rapid changes in education, the digital native teachers who replace them will become the majority of teachers. They’ll bring their lifelong experiences with them into the classroom, and they’ll expect and demand that their classrooms be without walls, be connected, and be relevant. Education in the United States will finally look, feel, and be different than it was at its conception.

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2020 Vision