Rethinking education - some common traps

This morning I came across this

• Why School? TED ebook author rethinks education when information is everywhere.

Three essential questions

In discussing our response to new possibilities it can be really helpful to think about what questions we are answering. Clearly Will Richardson and many of the commentators have been answering the question
Q1. What is possible?
But in responding to what is possible we need to be able to answer two more questions:

Q2. What is desirable? And to whom?
Q3. What is feasible? And for whom, given their current constraints such as time, energy, existing policies, practices, expectations...?

So what is possible for some stakeholders (e.g., teachers) may or may not be perceived as desirable and/or feasible by other stakeholders (administrators, government, families...)

Common Traps

Clearly there are some potentially hidden difficulties here including

• Answering any of the above questions in isolation from the other two questions
• Being unrealistic - "There is a simple answer to every question and it is usually wrong"
• being unfair - "Nothing is impossible to those who don't have to do it"
• Underestimating the disruption involved in taking advantage of what has become possible by focusing exclusively on the future and not how to get there. As Deming would ask "By what method?"
• ...