| A Learning Revolution |
| The first paragraph of the essay is a set-up piece: it aims at predisposing us to question the current educational system but does not use a rational argument to do so. Firstly, students in today�s universities are described as being �passive� in the lecture hall, and professors as people who �drone on� instead of teaching. My own experience of the university lecture was very different: much of the material was interesting and was delivered in adequate manner. I say adequate because, although my professors were rarely fascinating lecturers, I realize that the university student must be able to look after his/her learning to a great extent. Francis seems to utilize the latter common belief. She extends her generalization to all levels of grade school and hopes that we won�t notice. In my experience there is a tremendous difference between the university lecture hall and the grade school classroom. In the latter, students do much more than take notes and teachers do much more than lecture. Also in the leading paragraph, Francis uses a variation of the misguided debate tactic that goes: �That�s an old argument.� The fact that an argument is old says nothing about its value. Francis seems to say that because other aspects of society have changed in literally visible ways, so should education. That is to say, she claims that change that someone from renaissance times could quickly recognize is important. It seems that Francis is not so much concerned about making a coherent argument as leading the reader �down the garden path.� She looks to be unsure about what period the current educational system resembles. First it�s 500 years ago, then it�s the medieval period. Does she really know what today�s system is like? The reader soon realizes what Francis is getting at. In the second paragraph she mentions the �stranglehold of teacher�s unions� and the elimination of tenured professors. She then gives the two sectors of society that would benefit from better education, naming the economy first. This isn�t an oversight: throughout the essay, wealth seems to be what Francis wants education to feed. It is telling that the three people whom Francis interviews for this essay are not teachers or even educational theorists, but corporate heads. Their collective message is: buy computers, lots of them. Francis calls Bill Gates� concept of education �child-centered� whereas it seems computer-centered. She first claims that his sort of classroom would involve less �performance� than the traditional classroom, but then indicates that the real evil is not performance as such but �poor performance skills by [sic] certain teachers.� Gates suggests performances recorded and played back by a computer as a replacement for the performance of a living teacher. So the difference is not the amount of performance but the quality of the performance. Why isn�t improved teacher education being advocated instead of �upgrading� to the latest Microsoft curriculum? Gates also claims that the approach he suggests would allow teachers to tailor-make lessons for individual students. But aren�t they prevented from doing that by lack of time? Gates doesn�t seem to realize that, without training scores additional teachers for each school district, the educational system could not realize his dream. Alternatively, he may realize this well enough but hope that weary teachers will pass on lesson-planning tasks to the programmers at Microsoft. In the fifth paragraph we have Don Tapscott, a �New Economy guru,� telling us what�s wrong with today�s educational system. He seems to be making a sales pitch; his concept can be reduced to �Only ten dollars a month! It worked in NY, it�ll work for you! Make teachers� jobs easier than ever!� Public schools are public so that those who do not have an extra $10 a month to throw around can get an education too. Furthermore, we are not told what an improvement in student performance is. Similarly, in the next paragraph, John Chambers states that kids with computers �score high.� On what scale do they score high? Francis caps off her National Post style essay by implying that teachers� unions, strike votes, and work-to-rule campaigns by teachers are necessarily bad. She also reminds us of what we should all be on the hunt for: �the wealth of nations.� |