Technology and global issues bring change to the classrooms, but be careful about declaring the dawn of a new age.

Philadelphia Inquirer – Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009

Many educators and education theorists seem to have bought into the notion that the early 21st century marks some kind of watershed in the history of the field. We do have some powerful new technologies to bring to bear on the learning process. And the daunting societal and environmental challenges that seem to lie ahead may demand some rethinking of our approach to educating our youth. On the other hand, our tendency to overestimate our importance as molders of young minds and our limited capacity to see into the future should suggest a cautious approach to these heralds of a new age.

One pedagogical pundit, Marc Prensky, believes that the brains of today’s teenagers have already been physically altered by their use of computer-chip-driven devices of all sorts. “Digital natives” he calls them, and he says there is strong “indirect evidence” of this transformation. He goes on to claim that as their teachers, we cannot hope to effectively bridge the divide that separates us from this new breed unless we are willing to meet them on their turf (presumably somewhere in cyberspace). The old methods will no longer work.

I started teaching exactly 30 years ago, two years before IBM brought out its first PC. I told my current students that they had been dubbed “digital natives” and asked them whether they felt it was difficult to relate to someone of my pre-digital vintage. They thought I was joking.

Another contingent of innovators has latched on to training-our-children-for-global-citizenship as the new critical need. Advocates emphasize the central role technologies must play in creating a new generation of human beings who perceive of themselves first as citizens of the world.

The presenters at a Global Education seminar I attended last spring repeatedly referred to this moment in history as pivotal, citing new data on population growth, environmental degradation, poverty, and the like. One of them quoted a British scientist who apparently believes that we live at the most important juncture not just in the four-billion-year history of the planet, but in the history of the cosmos! As far as I could tell, he was serious. I looked around at the audience and a few of them were nodding. None seemed to find the statement hard to swallow.

The catchiest phrase of the daylong event was a line taken from H.G. Wells, who once described humanity as in “a race between education and catastrophe.” It perfectly fit the agenda of the session’s designers and I can certainly see why they borrowed it. Context matters, however, particularly in subjects such as social studies.

I believe the phrase appeared in the introduction to the first edition of his 1,000-page volume, The Outline of History. The book traced the growth and development of the human family from its prehistoric origins to the 20th century. Wells wrote it in the immediate aftermath of the Great War (1914-1918). Wells believed, as did many contemporaries, that civilization might not survive another conflict on that scale and that a way must be found to prevent a repeat of this disaster. Wells saw education as the answer and hoped that a better understanding of our cultural and historical origins would help the world’s people deal with each other more constructively and peacefully.

One can only applaud his efforts. Sadly, the name by which we now refer to that conflict – World War One – reflects the reality that many of the same people were at it again, killing millions more of each other and their children, two decades later.

Wells’ reputation today rests primarily on his authorship of works of science fiction mostly written over a century ago. They include War of the Worlds and The Island of Doctor Moreau. These stories contained brilliantly prescient references to technologies that were often generations away from realization, yet Wells himself had no great hopes for a high-tech future. He famously said, “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the human race.”

The comment reminds me that many solutions to current problems can be found in already established technologies. The much greater challenge remains persuading people to commit to them. In the nation’s classrooms, good teachers have been encouraging their students to think globally for decades. I still remember the special events held on the first Earth Day in 1970. We left the classroom and spent the day participating in rallies and cleanup projects. The experience helped shape my belief in the importance of finding ways to minimize our impact on the natural environment.

Is the early 21st century the most important moment in the history of the cosmos? Unlikely. Will more computers in schools, more Internet access, more curricular materials in varied media, more “tweeting,” more use of social networking tools, and more globally oriented curricula transform this generation of students in some world-changing way? Probably not. Is there work to do? Absolutely. One worthwhile effort might be to get more kids (and adults) away from their digital devices and onto bikes.