In Tinkering toward Utopia (1995), Tyack and Cuban correctly argue that the fundamental nature of public schooling has not changed in the 20th century. The way schooling is organized, or the “grammar” of public schools, is relatively the same as when our parents and grandparents attended. The subjects studied, appearance of the buildings, start and end times, organization of leadership and staff, and length of the classes remains essentially unchanged. (Tyack and Cuban, 1995, p. 85) Tyack and Cuban describe the reforms that created this “real schooling”, and analyze why they stayed and became part of our culture, while so many others did not.
Two reforms that that Tyack and Cuban highlight as critical in shaping our idea of public education …show more content…
Students who struggle with learning and are not motivated by academics tend to do not do well in the unstructured format. Whereas the motivated and gifted child may not reach their full potential in the rigid systems, they will still most likely “succeed”. The structure and supervision of the “real school” proved to be a way to monitor and drive unmotivated children, at least more than the flexible education reforms did. The second reason is because the rigid system is comfortable to teachers, administrators, and the community. Routines have made the plethora of other tasks on teachers’ and administrators’ plates on manageable and community members take comfort in familiarity of schooling and in knowing, in a general sense, what their children will be doing at school in a given …show more content…
The changing and increasing role technology is playing in the classroom is in my opinion the closest we have gotten to real and lasting change. While currently, most students are using technology within the constraints of the normal school schedule, programs like Hybrid learning (the Hy-C program in our district) and flipped classrooms allow students to work at their own pace in different environments. Students are also able to work together effectively and collaborate with people outside of their school building or culture; some students who would otherwise be disengaged are participating in tech-based lessons; and teachers are able to differentiate within the classroom like never
Two reforms that that Tyack and Cuban highlight as critical in shaping our idea of public education …show more content…
Students who struggle with learning and are not motivated by academics tend to do not do well in the unstructured format. Whereas the motivated and gifted child may not reach their full potential in the rigid systems, they will still most likely “succeed”. The structure and supervision of the “real school” proved to be a way to monitor and drive unmotivated children, at least more than the flexible education reforms did. The second reason is because the rigid system is comfortable to teachers, administrators, and the community. Routines have made the plethora of other tasks on teachers’ and administrators’ plates on manageable and community members take comfort in familiarity of schooling and in knowing, in a general sense, what their children will be doing at school in a given …show more content…
The changing and increasing role technology is playing in the classroom is in my opinion the closest we have gotten to real and lasting change. While currently, most students are using technology within the constraints of the normal school schedule, programs like Hybrid learning (the Hy-C program in our district) and flipped classrooms allow students to work at their own pace in different environments. Students are also able to work together effectively and collaborate with people outside of their school building or culture; some students who would otherwise be disengaged are participating in tech-based lessons; and teachers are able to differentiate within the classroom like never