The video below is a great end result of several ideas I have running throughout this blog. To sum up: Education needs to evolve:
- We haven’t changed the educational structure of this country in 100 years (primary school to secondary school to college).
- That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but it relies heavily on a culture that is stable. SAT format and score adjustments reflect kids are getting better, that’s right better, at that type of thinking and test taking.
- We need parallel paths that generate alternative skills, especially in local markets. I’m not just talking about vocational skills, but those have been de-emphasized because of flawed policies
- We need more University of Phoenix ideas. A sort of distributed education system where the curriculum is expert oriented and can be accessed as needed and paid for not by supply and demand but rather the cable system style of subscription. This allows for more popular courses to somewhat subsidize the less popular and a tiered cost model would offer more benefits. It also gives autonomy to the entrepreneur-educator that operates the specific curriculum pod.
- State and Local governments are pressed currently by budget constraints and good educators and methods for teaching are being abandoned. And those that do remain are hamstrung by a lack of teaching resources or in some cases faulty facilities
- We have two business models we can leverage to alleviate this situation with creative adjustments. An organization like Donor’s Choose could expand on their version of micro-funding with tapping into the growing number of retired teachers. Time is currency and I bet someone that loves kids wouldn’t mind sharing ideas about lesson plans with fellow teachers. Here’s how I see it, a teacher could be interested in trying a new way to get kids excited about math, but has run out of ideas. So they post a “lesson plan request” instead of a project. This “lesson plan request” spells out the situation and educational goals. Teachers with free time could donate their successful lesson plans and on a limited basis work with the teacher to implement it.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
Working Thoughts 