I can easily count the days where, as a child, I was lost in front of the TV or listening to the radio. That was my now! That's how I was "connected" to the world. It was a natural occurrence in every household to have the youth (and even some adults) gain information from a broadcast atmosphere. As I journeyed through school, this broadcast approach was then applied to my learning. Sit back... listen... take notes... take test... Move on. REPEAT!

I mastered this tactic. I did well in school. I thought I was set for life. WRONG!

A few weeks ago, I was moved by the conversation on This Week in Tech regarding education. As a resident nerd, I find the insight from most of the guests to fill my need "conversation" (my wife doesn't understand SQL). At approximately 51 minutes on episode 197, Don Tapscott, Leo Laporte, and Jeff Jarvis get into a great discussion about how the education system for today's kids... the kids going through school RIGHT NOW, is broken.

They pose the question: What's the purpose of education?

This Industrial Age System is not applicable to what happens in the everyday lives of our children. "Testing students with an industrial age model is stamping out the same kids. They see, and I agree, a model where the learning is more student focused, a collaborative environment that is NOT one size fits all. For the generation we're training to take over when we're done, we need to change and adapt the pedagogy to one that is an interactive (content and people) and creative where we can all flourish! We need to create incubators (at the high school and university level) of creativity!

To quote Jeff Jarvis, "What's going to get us out of this mess is not Industrial Age people marching to the same beat."

I know that I might be "preaching to the choir" with this, but I found it to be enlightening to have new media advocates speaking of education to a wider audience. For more information, read about Don Tapscott.