Education Needs an Upgrade
An Operating System for the Classrooms of Tomorrow
When I was a teacher, I came to school every day and did everything I could to help my students learn. My colleagues and administrators did too, and our students wanted to succeed. But each spring, they'd take their end-of-year assessments, and - despite all of our best efforts - most of them would fail.
This wasn't just my school. Every day, millions of educators across the United States pour themselves into their students. Yet despite years of standards reform and billions of dollars spent on curriculum and technology, most of our students still aren't proficient. It begs the question: Why can't we do better?
As devoted educators like you know, the problem isn't a lack of effort. (Teachers work HARD!!) I don't think the problem is with curriculum or technology, either. The problem, in my opinion, is that the fundamental assumption of K-12 education - that every student should learn the same thing, in the same way, every day - hasn't much changed since the Industrial Revolution. So it's heartbreaking but not surprising to me that, despite all the advancements humanity has made over the last few decades, student achievement levels haven't really budged.
I don't think we need new resources. Instead, we need to use the ones we have more effectively. We need to:
★ Treat students as individuals, with unique abilities and needs.
★ Emphasize human connection, especially in the wake of COVID-19.
★ Use technology strategically, as a tool that extends teachers' capabilities.
To use a computer analogy, we don't need new programs so much as we need a new operating system: a way of running classrooms that meets every student's needs, and helps every student truly learn. And in the same way that your computer's operating system lets you run more powerful programs every year, a new classroom operating system will create more powerful learning experiences every day.
