The New Teacher:

From time to time there is a change in how teachers teach. This happens because the consensuses amongst those responsible for broad patterns of education feel they have found a better way to explain the subject matter to the students. This happened back in the 1980s with the introduction of set theory as unifying concept mathematics. Many parents felt that because they did not understand the underlying concept the approach was wrong.

The same thing happened earlier when the biological concepts were expanded to include the theories based on Charles Darwin’s findings. Here however the new theory was clashing with not just parental understanding but the religious establishment felt compelled to enter the resulting discussion. The resulting discussions became composed of more heat than light. In fact this discussion continues thinly veiled as intelligent creationism.

What is currently occurring is far more fundamental and can be far more important to the future. For the first time in human history a major portion of human knowledge is available to a very wide audience. What has brought this change is the most significant invention of the last century. That invention is neither the atomic bomb nor nuclear reactors. The invention that may propel the human race into the future that might well prove to be boundless is the personal computer. The application that is changing teaching is by a company called Google.

For the first time the teacher can teach their students skills that will in fact last a life time. Imagine learning something at age 15 that would serve you well when you were 70. Reading is such a skill. Being able to write clearly in an understandable way is another life time long skill learned when you are young. Add to reading and writing a third skill that can now be taught. That skill is how to query a search engine like Google. Basically once a student learns how to ask meaningful questions and refine those questions he has mastered a universal skill as fundamental as reading itself.

What must happen now is that all of our teachers should embrace the method. Beginning in grade schools the use of computers as knowledge sifting devices must be encourage and the students taught how to use these devices to educate themselves. I think that if the total human knowledge can be easily accessed by all humans everywhere a measure of democracy unimagined in the past might be possible. Because today’s new knowledge rests upon yesterdays known facts and theories having access to the whole of human knowledge will lead to solutions to problems that have not even been conceptualized yet.