70917 Grandmother to eLearning
Submitted by Ted on Wed, 2007/10/31 - 3:21pm.
I have in my hand a high school report card of exemplary (almost straight A) student that is preparing for the technology based global economy. Courses taken in this one year are:
Algebra
Physics
German
Writing
English
Spelling
Political Economics
and Geometry.
The unique aspects are that the student is a girl (Ruth Chidsey), she had moved from her rural farm home to live in the county seat to attend high school, after graduating she taught in the local school for a few years and the school year is 1897-1898.
She never realized her potential as an engineer, mathematician or project manager for International Business Machines. That was left up to her three grandchildren who she raised, including me. My sister is the mathematician and my brother just retired from IBM.
One hundred years later our memes have evolved. It is no longer a unique happening that a girl graduates from high school. Our vision is that not just a small fraction but all youth will graduate from high school. Not only that they will engage a life span of learning both formal and informal. Our means must with not only keep pace our present memes but be positioned to rapidly adapt to learning demands and methods of the future.
Bob Rosenberg and I have met with many dozens of leaders in governance, legislature, education and business communities over the summer. The meme that “elearning for every student will happen, it just a matter of time” is almost universal. Arizona will lead or follow, it’s up to us. Then the progeny of that young girl in a log farm house on Plum Creek will be able stay with their families and have the world come to their home.
When her great-grandchildren tell stories to their grandchildren it will be about how Ruth was the first to learn: Algebra; Physics; German; Writing; English; Spelling; Political Economics and Geometry. And they had better keep the meme alive for another hundred years.
