I spent two days this week at the White House Conference Center, with a small group hosted by John Baily, Director of the Office of Educaional Technology. Their idea was to learn as much about the "millenials" (the generation born after 1982, that I call the "digital natives,") in order to suggest what changes in the education system might be appropriate for this generation.
It was clear both from John and from his boss Eugene Hickok, the Under-Secretary of Education, that there is both a clear recognition of how out-of-date our schools are, and a strong desire to change them.
It was also clear that the tools that they have at their disposal are few, essentially just the "bully pulpit," of showing statistics, suggesting metrics, and presenting new vision and ideas, which they intend to do in an upcoming report.
Still, it is good they are listening.
The two most interesting new ideas that I picked up were:
(1) although our curricular education system leaves much to be desired and our results are not the best in the world, our extracurricular system is second to none. It is interesting to analyze the features that make this so (choice, parental involvement, competition, etc.) and see how we can use these for improving the curricular side.
(2) although the most important descriptor of the the millenial generation is their sense of empowerment (though interactivity, buying power, etc), some presenters suggested they are, in general, also a very conservative, risk averse group. I'm not sure what this means, yet, and I'd like to get more data, but it's definitely food for thought.
Posted by Marc at September 26, 2003 03:04 PM