Education and especially education in America needs a serious dose of technology and automation that is long overdue. The automated tools are available, but adoption has been slow at best, and even with the meteoric rise of the Internet, educators have been reluctant to change the old ways of doing things.

The One Room Schoolhouse
I attended American public schools in the 50s and 60s and what is truly startling is how little has changed in the 50 years since then. The buildings are pretty much the same, the classrooms look exactly like they did “in the day,” with a desk for each student and the teacher’s desk strategically placed to keep a watchful eye on the class. In fact, the biggest change you find from then and now is that the blackboard is now a whiteboard!

The teaching / learning process today is “teacher centric” and revolves around the completion of lessons in a text book, just as it has been done since the advent of the one room schoolhouse on the prairie. The teacher lectures, administers the lesson plans and grades the papers. The “sage on the stage” is the main reason students learn and the quality of the teacher is a major factor in how much the students learn and retain.

Think back to your own experience in school and I’ll bet there were teachers who intrigued and excited you on the one hand, and on the other there were many who went through the motions and bored you to tears. The teacher centric method depends too much on the “art” of teaching and the standard of really high quality education will never be realized as long as it is so dependent on the quality of the teacher.

We’ve achieved remarkable progress in 50 years – especially in the area of technology and communication. Why hasn’t education kept pace? Why are we doing things in education pretty much the same way they were done in the one room schoolhouse on the prairie?

Automation Improves Productivity and Results
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, automation has been recognized as a key factor in improving productivity. It has led to higher quality and reduced production time and cost in such industries as the auto industry, manufacturing and even agriculture. Thousands of acres of crops can be planted, nurtured, grown and harvested by machinery for a fraction of the cost of doing the same job using horses and human labor. But that is so obvious in this day and age. Why don’t we apply the same principles to education?

One of the problems is that the institutions that are training our educators are not in tune with the potential quality and productivity gains that can be realized using automation in education. Most teachers are given training in teaching technique and classroom management, but are rarely exposed to the new automated tools and devices that can enhance and greatly improve the education process.

I can remember my first introduction to automation in school. We were led into an AV (audiovisual) room where there was a big 25” black and white TV set up. The program they showed us was a science series that was aired by National Geographic on a public broadcasting station at a set time each day. This interesting series covered a remarkably diverse number of subjects in science and nature. Each of these programs was developed by subject-matter experts who narrated well designed presentations with visuals and actual film footage to bring the subject to life. These programs were vivid and exciting and I developed a strong fundamental understanding of many areas of science because of them. I grew to love science and enjoyed the presentations and the experience of learning in this way.

Unfortunately this was the only real experience I can recall in my public school years – due to the fact that the science program on TV was the only experience I was offered. It was always, another teacher, another text book, another test, another grade. Why change the process when it seemed to work, especially for so long.

Well, today’s education is in crisis and is struggling to keep millions of kids from dropping out before they finish high school. Americans are not keeping pace in education with the rest of the world and the comparative reading and math scores of American students are indicative of a system that is in need of dramatic change.

Automation and a greater acceptance of technology in general is one answer whose time has come. Learning systems that begin by quickly and accurately identifying each student’s strengths and weaknesses are essential to allowing educators to focus instruction on the student’s appropriate level. If our educators continue to use the “one lesson fits all” approach, we will continue to bore some students and worst yet, leave others behind – and we will continue to get the same dismal results that have plagued the American education system for years.

Prescriptive Instruction
It’s not easy to evaluate hundreds or thousands of students in an accurate and timely way without the use of automation. There are automated online systems that can provide computer adaptive tests that can pinpoint each student’s ability quickly and in depth. These online learning systems can immediately report results that can then be used to provide targeted instruction either through traditional methods or by establishing a customized program of online instruction automatically. This process is known as “prescriptive instruction.” It requires an in depth skills evaluation and then allows for targeted instruction that is appropriate for each student individually.

Imagine going to a doctor and being told, “I don’t know what is troubling you or why you are here, but I am going to prescribe this medicine for you that I’ve given to every one of my patients because it seems to make them better.” How fast would you be out the door running from that quack? Isn’t the education system saying the same things to our students? “Hey kid, you’re in the fourth grade, here’s the fourth grade text book, read chapter one and were going to have a test on it next week.” Sounds a lot like the doctor that is prescribing the same medicine to every patient, doesn’t it?

I recently heard a perfect description of our public education system in America from an enlightened educator who understands the value of technology and automation in education. He said, “The public education system in this country is an industrial process run on an agrarian calendar in a digital age…go figure.”

Technology and automation solutions abound and will allow the teacher to become a facilitator in the learning process. What education needs is for the teacher to become the “guide on the side” while allowing technology and automation to more appropriately deal with our 21st century learners.