1800 or 2014?

Public Domain CC0
http://pixabay.com/en/blackboard-classroom-steinbach-56661/

Over the years in education we have learned a lot. We have moved from worksheets to hands-on learning; from independent work to collaboration; from tests to multiple methods of assessment. We use formative assessments as we go through the learning cycle. Our classrooms have interactive boards and computers and iPads. But what has really changed in our schools over the past 200 years?

We know that students should be immersed in learning; that they can show what they are learning throughout the process; that the project should be the largest component of the unit rather than THE TEST. We know that children learn through play and by interacting with their environment. We know that their attention span in minutes is only as long as their age is in years; yet we still demand they pay attention to boring tasks for much longer than this. And truly, the classroom today still looks very much like it did 200 years ago. There are a few additional pieces of technology; sometimes students sit in groups rather than in rows; but for the most part, we deliver instruction in the same manner we have for hundreds of years.

What is it that is holding us back in education? We are supposed to be the innovators, the people to change the world, yet we are ignoring basic child development when it comes to making our classrooms meet the needs of those who most need it. What will it take to wake us up?