Disrupting Class

OK, I know I post a lot about the house and the kids, but today will be different. I am finally getting a little time to read a book I started before Christmas. It was recommended by a friend who teaches at the university, but also homeschools his children. Disrupting Class, by Clayton Christensen, is not an easy read for someone who doesn't like diagrams and intricate details of economics, but now that I have waded through that part, I am quickly swimming through the last part. Christensen takes his business theory (he teaches at the Harvard Business School) and applies it to the public education system in the USA. He shows how a business can not disrupt itself, because it is in business for itself and its current customers. Therefore, the Education System cannot disrupt itself because it already has things the way it wants them. So the business has to be disrupted by another business. And how is that going to happen in education? Good question. It seems that it is going to happen almost undetected by the unions and textbook companies. The internet and its many offerings are going to drastically change the way teachers approach their students. They will finally be able to individualize each child's instruction so that their own learning styles can be accomodated. This will first happen with students and parents outside of school, but as it takes hold and spreads, there will be little choice but to let it in the school systems. This actually has started to occur in trying to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind. I liked this last paragraph of chapter 5: "At some point, administrators, school committees, and teachers' unions will recognize that even without explicit adminstrative decisions ever having been made, student-centric learning will have become mainstream. The substitution curve analysis in chapter 4 suggests that this will happen in approximately 2014 when online courses have a 25 percent market share in high schools- six years from the date of publication of this book. Student-centric learning is not far away." Woo Hoo! Finally we are going to move away from all of the rules and red tape and actually let kids learn. It seems that the home school movement has had a lot to do with this change. More and more students are turning to other ways of learning than just textbooks, and now the rest of the world is starting to notice. If all of the predictions are correct this change will occur before my children are out of school. Glad to know we are on the cutting edge and my children will be a bit ahead of the game as they enter "Grown-Up Land." That makes my pained primer painting back feel a lot better. You knew I couldn't say nothing about the house job!