How do you think schooling will change in the next decade?

We have a lot of sayings about change in our society. The general theme is that nothing ever stays the same and change is inevitable. Schooling is not immune to change either and has altered greatly in the past 100 years. Less than 3% of the teachers who participated in this poll feel that there will be no change at all. Yet given historical trends it looks like the next decade will bring about some changes as well. Teachers believe that more reliance on technology will be one of the biggest alterations with longer school days and years and more home schooling placing second and third in the vote.

Technology has always brought with it change. The Industrial Revolution changed the world so greatly with its forms of technology that it is recognized as one of the major turning points in history. Now we are in the computer age and it promises to be just as revolutionary. Already we use computers in ways that most people could not have imagined a few decades ago.

With the advent of any new technology comes a growing dependence or reliance on that new technology. Think how much we rely on electricity to give us light and heat. Before these inventions people used other sources such as candles, kerosene and woodstoves. Now we are almost exclusively reliant on electricity. Computer technology will be no different. Already it has revolutionized the way people communicate and how they spend their leisure time.

Email, instant messaging and texting is common place and the reliance on the postal service and regular landline phones has decreased. Word processors have taken the place of typewriters and stenography machines, and our children now stay at home and play computer games instead of running around outside.

While the possibility exists that school days and the school year may get longer or that more parents will turn to home schooling, more reliance on technology is almost certainly going to occur. We can accept this change and learn new ways to implement technology or we can fight the changes and try to keep the status quo. If you chose to fight, it may be a losing battle. How many people do you know who still use kerosene lamps and manual typewriters?