Environmental Change and Adaptation

Technological and social change have catalyzed one another throughout recorded history. It is unnecessary, if not wholly impossible, to determine which was the prime cause that began the cycle of innovation that defines the human experience. Just as sociological change drives technological development, so emergent technologies permit social innovation. The invention of moveable type and consequent inexpensive printing, for example, led to widespread literacy which, in turn, fostered democratization of learning and opportunity that inevitably resulted in the development of new technologies. Alvin Toffler’s book The Third Wave breaks the history of technological and societal innovation into three distinct stages catalyzed by technological revolutions: the agricultural age, the industrial age, and the information age (Laureate, 2009). Dr. David Thornburg suggests that a fourth wave, which he calls “the communication age,” has once again transformed our society (Laureate, 2009). Each of these technological-sociological revolutions catalyzes an adaptation of educational practice. Unfortunately, that adaptation is too often tardy.

The dawn of the agricultural age allowed for the accumulation of wealth that enabled specialization, social stratification, and leisure. Hunter-gatherers were stratified only according to their strength and skill, but they were not specialized. All were generalists. And their wealth, a fresh kill, perhaps, or a mound of fruit, was so transitory as to have little lasting social significance, particularly if one were injured, fell ill, or weakened with age. Knowledge of wild plants and animals was passed down by observation and, with the invention of language (an educational revolution), by word of mouth.

In an agrarian society, particularly one based on grains, wealth (the fruits of the harvest) can be stored and accumulated. This allowed some members of the society to specialize, producing goods and services to barter for the food surplus of others. A successful farmer, for example, could choose to concentrate on producing food, spending some portion of the produce to purchase other needs, like shoes from the village cobbler or protection from the village warlord. These new specialists radically transformed society, leading to social stratification. The barter system also necessitated new technologies in transportation, counting, measurement, and, eventually, currency. Large scale trade required complex record-keeping, which led to the invention of numerals and early writing systems. During the early agricultural period, most young people would learn their trades from their own parents, or be apprenticed to specialists in other fields. But new social specialties required new educational models. Religious, governmental, and military organizations began training privileged pupils in schools very much in the modern model, with specialists teaching large groups of students. Specialized education, particularly in mathematics and literacy, became an avenue to wealth. But it wasn’t until the industrial age that this model became the standard for the general population.

Educational advances and specialization enabled by the agricultural revolution led to an explosion of technological innovation. Eventually, new technologies made mechanized production possible, ushering in the industrial age. The formal schooling enjoyed by a few during the agricultural age, in which students were educated en masse by specialist teachers, was a perfect fit for the mass-production industrial model. Students could be schooled in basic skills (literacy, mathematics, civics, science) in an efficient “one size fits all” system. Thornburg points out that this system of “dividing the students up by age group and by content area” is “very much like an assembly line” (Laureate, 2009). From these schools, some would go on to higher education, as did the beneficiaries of professional training during the agricultural era, while others would receive on-the-job training once they joined the workforce. This model satisfied the needs of industry and the majority of the workforce throughout the industrial era, and has been the basic model of schooling until today.

The information age ushered in a time of independent education and creation as electronic technology facilitated speedy and inexpensive information retrieval, and the computer in particular facilitated new advances in personal creativity. Information resources that were once geographically isolated became universally available through broadcast media and the Internet. The implications for learning were profound, as scholars were able to retrieve data from vast and various sources around the globe almost instantaneously. While most formal schooling continued to follow the agrarian-industrial broadcast model, independent minded learners had the opportunity to easily investigate topics that interested them, no matter how esoteric or obscure, and synthesize their discoveries into original products. Dr. David Thornburg notes that this technology had the potential to facilitate a type of learning Piaget referred to as “cognitive constructivism” (Laureate, 2009). Now, as many traditional schools are slowly recognizing and beginning to explore the potential of information age technology, a new era Thornburg calls “the communication age” once again challenges educators to rethink teaching and learning.

What distinguishes Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) technology from earlier technology is its potential to facilitate collaboration and instantaneous communication among a community of shared interest (Richardson, 2006). This is particularly important for educators because of the potential of this collaboration and information sharing to facilitate realization of Vygotsky's social constructivist vision of learning (Laureate, 2009). The ability to post and share ideas through weblogs, wikis, podcasts, video sharing, and social networking websites can be used to bring about the type of social learning educators have long dreamed about, if teachers, administrators, and society in general can recognize and exploit this potential (Richardson, 2006). Unfortunately, there are already indications that formal educational institutions will once again be slow to adapt.

It is important to notice that these transitions from one age to another are gradual and uncoordinated. This is especially significant in the realm of education, which is often slow to respond to technological and sociological change. Thornburg notes, for example, that industrial and communication age schools still retain the agricultural age accommodation of summer vacation, despite its current lack of pedagogical relevance (Laureate, 2009). Only now are many school systems abandoning this lopsided model for year-round schooling plans that substitute several smaller breaks between terms for this lengthy interruption. Similarly, many teachers and schools still insist on teaching only traditional print media research, failing to teach their students the skills they need to responsibly use the potential of Internet research to find information. Now, Internet applications make it possible for scholars to share and collaboratively construct knowledge as never before, yet many school systems not only fail to introduce their students to these applications, but actively prevent access.

Citing the real hazards of social networking and online publishing in general, many schools and systems attempt to shelter their students from exposure to the wild world of ideas where they will eventually live the rest of their lives. Rather than preparing our students to protect themselves and stake their claim in the untamed new territory of the communication age, many stakeholders in our students’ education seem to feel it is safer to lock them in towers of ignorance. But we do so at our children’s peril, because they will eventually enter that wilderness, whether we prepare them to survive or not. If we allow the world’s predators to adapt more nimbly than our students, we may doom those we would protect.

Laureate. (2009). EDUC 6710: The Third Wave. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=3642127&Survey=1&47=4979472&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.