According to Toffler (2002), it took approximately fifty thousand years to accumulate the knowledge of mankind that existed in the year 1 AD. It then took 1500 years to double that knowledge. But by the early 70's, we (mankind) were doubling our knowledge every 6 years. Scientists have determined that in our current day, human knowledge doubles EVERY YEAR. (Collier and Thomas, 2014)
Teachers no longer have the luxury of being the only one doing the teaching. When the knowledge-growth rate was slower, the traditional model of students seated in rows and a teacher delivering the exact same level of knowledge the exact same way to all students was adequate. Today, teachers must become facilitators of student directed classrooms, "preparing students to become information processors, analysts, and self-motivated learners." (Collier and Thomas, 2014).
Do you want to know what my most favorite parent complaint is? "He is so frustrated in class! He says his teacher won't just tell him the answer!"
"Perfect!" says I.
"A great teacher doesn't teach as much as possible. A great teacher teachers as LITTLE as possible, while modeling the behaviors of how to figure something out." (Maats & O'brien, 2015).
As parents, this is a huge shift for some of us and the way we learned. And we figured that because we learned that way, and we turned out fine and we understand it and are comfortable with it, our children should learn the same way.
But our instruction and learning environment needs to evolve and adapt to the amount and needs of human knowledge. This means we need to focus less on specific content (all of our favorite dinosaur or circus-themes lessons) and more on teaching students how to learn, how to reflect, how to productively struggle.
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