Future School: Reshaping Learning From the Ground Up

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Future School: Reshaping Learning From the Ground Up
I read Future Shock and (more importantly) The Third Wave when I was a lot younger, and consequently, Alvin Toffler was an important intellectual influence on my thinking. I still have notes from those days I refer to. So it is of interest to see Toffler's recommendations regarding the American school system (and presumably, his remarks would apply elsewhere as well): "Shut down the public education system." Well and good, but I don't agree that we should, instead, ramp up the charter school system. We will not move forward simply by replacing the current school administration with unqualified and politically motivated alternative administrations. This is the thing about charter schools: they are not 'fundamental radical changes'. They're the same old thing, except run by people who don't know what they're doing. More...