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Monday, September 15, 2014

Monday, September 1, 2014

21 Century Education, Why are we not there yet?


Why are we still struggling 21c pedagogy?

We are 14 years into the 21century and we are still struggling with the 21c pedagogy concept. Why?
It seems simple, as a matter of fact, it is so simple that Socrates  was engaging in the practice 2300 years ago.

Here is why I think it is so simple and it stems from a simple quote that Socrates so eloquently articulated a very long time ago.

He said, "I cannot teach anyone anything, I can only make them think."

Wow, do you not see how this perfectly describes our current reality? If we think we can teach people things, think again with exponential growth happening all around us it is impossible for one person to be current.

With the use of a few search engines you can get the answer to almost any question you have.  Educator's role is to help individuals sort through all the fluff and find the useful information.

At the end of the search you will find a lot of valuable information and now the thinking comes into play. What can you do with all the information that one finds?

The most important part of education now happens when you take all the information you found and use your imagination to create something new from what you found.

The role of 21c education is not to impart knowledge, but to ignite thought. If, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the rest of the crew were able to engage in 21C learning over 2000 years ago let's take a page out of the Republic and replicate it today.