Education in the 21st Century

A study published in July showed that people have become less likely to remember things that they know are only a click away on the Internet. That is, our selective memory has expanded to exclude things easily found via a web search. I interpret this revelation as meaning that people are selectively remembering the things that matter most to them in their day in day out lives. All else are easily accessible, so why waste brain matter remembering them? Small example, I remember far fewer phone numbers than I used to thanks to my cloud-based contact list. I'll get back to why I started with an explanation of this study.

Anything and everything can be found on the Internet. It has been the one indispensable tool in my self-education. It helped me find answers to my endless list of questions about Mormonism. It was through the Internet that I discovered economics and the Austrian School. It's through the Internet that I have engaged in a countless number of debates and discussions with a countless number of people, many of which I have never met in person, but I consider them my friends. There has been a major paradigm shift in the world thanks to the Internet.

The last decade

Over the last decade, colleges and universities have begun offering their programs over the Internet. Virtual classrooms have been replacing the traditional classroom. Unfortunately, thanks to government intervention in education, tuition is however astronomically high, nevertheless I believe that the Internet is starting to force a major change. Enter Khan Academy and the University of the People. Khan Academy is a collection of over 2400 free instructional videos on subjects ranging from Algebra to Finance to Biology, and their database is growing. The University of the People is a virtual college devoted to tuition-free higher education. They currently offer Bachelor programs in Business Administration and Computer Science.

What both institutions demonstrate is just how feasible it is to create and receive a quality education over the Internet. I predict that both institutions are just the beginning of but another paradigm shift, this time in higher education. No longer would a professor need to spend countless hours lecturing students. He could simply record his lectures, assign them as homework, and use classroom time, either traditional or virtual, for discussion. That is, both teaching and learning are becoming more efficient.

This brings me back to where I started. To all appearances, we remember what we need to, and forget what can easily be found on the Internet. So why are we sending our kids to school and forcing them to learn things they don't need, and quite possibly what they don't care to learn? I believe that unschooling, from birth until death, is the education model of the 21st century and beyond. The Internet has grown to unthinkable heights. People no longer need traditional schools, public or private, to teach them someone's version of History, or Social Studies, Geography, and any other practically useless-in-our-day in day out-lives subject. If we need to know something, we can find it in a matter of minutes. Let's instead help our children discover their talents and passions, and to develop them in a non-compulsory, safe environment.