I’ve put my focus for the year in 2021 on issues in the corporate world. I’ve focused in particular on the role the business world plays in our lives. But, so far, my focus has (mostly) stayed away from education. Let’s change that a bit with a brief discussion of EdTech.
The education system relates to the tech world in lots of ways. I’ll sum this up with a quote from Noam Chomsky.
Language and Mind
The quote on ‘EdTech’ comes from a book called Language and Mind. Here it is in full:
It is particularly important that the limitations of understanding be clear to those involved in teaching…in the schools. There are strong pressures to make use of new educational technology and to design curriculum and teaching methods in the light of the latest scientific advances. In itself, this is not objectionable. It is important, nevertheless, to remain alert to a very real danger: that new knowledge and technique will define the nature of what is taught and how it is taught, rather than contribute to the realization of educational goals that are set on other grounds and in other terms…technique and even technology is available for rapid and efficient inculcation of skilled behavior, in language teaching, teaching of arithmetic, and other domains. There is, consequently, a real temptation to reconstruct curriculum in the terms defined by the new technology. And it is not too difficult to invent a rationale, making use of the concepts of “controlling behavior,” enhancing skills, and so on…what little we know about human intelligence would at least suggest something quite different: that by diminishing the range and complexity of materials presented to the inquiring mind, by setting behavior in fixed patterns, these methods may harm and distort the normal development of creative abilities.
Here I think Chomsky provides a tidy story of much of the problem with the EdTech industry. He also sets out many of the research problems for learning and development. Perhaps most impressively, he wrote this in 1968! The research literature made many advances in the next 50 years. But the problems remain mostly the same.
The Problem with EdTech
In a nutshell, EdTech often tries to adapt the student and the teacher to the technology. But the tech comes from a very different place. It finds its needs in venture capital funding, outsourcing, deskilling, and so on. Rarely does EdTech emphasize the best interest of the student. Nor does it focus on things of public concern, like good jobs for teachers who run their own classroom.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with EdTech. When done well, it helps people learn and helps teachers in the classroom. But to do so, the tech itself must be structured around those things, not around the needs of venture capital, profit, or growth. Actual learning – learning that builds creativity (note: link here to the social democracy vs. socialist democracy post) – has to come first, not forced to fit some edtech model.
More broadly, this is a problem in much of the tech industry. Instead of designing cars to fit roads or devices to fit use, it tries to re-engineer the world to fit the product. That’s not how this stuff works in a good society.
