While the core content of education - reading, math, history, science, PE - hasn't changed as much as it probably should have done over the past 50 years, the way that we deliver instruction inevitably evolves. Forces such as 1:1 laptops in classrooms, changing cultural/societal norm, and an increased fear of liability have transformed educational tools, classrooms, and expectations.
Thought it would be fun to assemble a list of some of the transformations I've lived to witness!
SCHOOL CAMPUSES
- Dangerous playground equipment. Metal jungle gyms (constructed with exposed bolts) that towered into the sky. Merry-go-rounds that flung children aside like a wet dog shaking off rain. Once upon a time, kids used to not just collect playground scars, but show them off like war vets comparing wounds. Nothing like the rounded, padded playgrounds of today!
- Smoking lounges. Hard to believe that, once upon a time, schools not only condoned teen smoking, but accommodated it with designated areas that practically marketed smoking as “cool”
- Desks
with storage. Rendered obsolete by backpacks, much to the relief of
teachers who were tired of removing moldy food and even nastier items.
- Physical
hall passes. Replaced by online apps that keep great data, but that
require teachers to constantly interrupt their instruction to check students in
and out of the classroom.
- Lockers. No
longer necessary in a world that has banished heavy textbooks and heavy winter
coats - the kids just wear their hoodies year round.
- Majorettes.
Not sure if the disappearance of majorettes from school
marching bands has more to do with baton twirling no longer being taught in PE,
flags being easier to master than twirling, or a growing discomfort over showcasing
prepubescent girls in skimpy attire.
- Retaining
students who haven't met grade-level standards. Citing
concerns over social-emotional issues, it's increasingly rare for students to
be held back a grade.
- Summer
school. Parents hate it and school districts increasingly
can't afford it, so high schools are increasingly defaulting to "credit
recovery" initiatives.
- Corporal
punishment. No one’s arguing that corporal punishment doesn’t
belong in schools but, truthfully, thanks to litigious parents and
lawsuit-fearing school districts, pretty much all consequences for misbehaviour
are being gradually whittled away
- Expulsion. Given the increased risk of parents filing lawsuits,
schools have pretty much given up on expelling students except for the most
egregious behaviours (ex: attempted murder)
- Snow
days. Rendered obsolete by 1:1 technology that now allows
students to access instruction from their homes – which is, frankly, just plain
cruel.
CLASSROOM PRACTICES
- Pledge
of Allegiance. To be clear, many schools are still observing the pledge,
but the days of students being compelled to stand and recite the pledge aloud
have gone the way of other compulsory displays of performative values.
- Formal
attire for teachers. No one dresses up for work
any more – not even teachers.
- Grade
books and attendance rosters. All this has been
moved to online apps, the better to facilitate real-time communication with
parents, fellow teachers, and admins.
- Grading
with red pens. Eliminated out of concern that the color red might
hit as too "judge-y," wounding student feelings.
- Memorization. With
information available at the touch of a screen, emphasis is shifting from
developing automaticity (those mind-numbing skill drills!) to developing
effective digital literacy skills.
- Homework. While
the research is by no means clear, more and more schools are eliminating
homework over concerns related to equity.
- Grades
for formative assessments (quizzes, classwork). The
theory: that grades should only measure mastery, and therefore should only be
based on tests/projects that measure mastery.
- Giving
zeroes. Another update being credited to concern over equity, many
schools are making their lowest grade a 50.
- Penalties
for late work. Because if grades are supposed to measure mastery, they
shouldn't be "tainted" by deductions that have nothing to do with
mastery.
- Pen
& pencil work. 1:1 technology is
rapidly making those once-ubiquitous worksheets obsolete. Nothing like the
smell of ozone in the morning
- Teacher
autonomy. For a variety of cultural reasons, control of what happens
in the classroom is gradually being wrested away from teachers, replaced by
politically-approved curriculum, AI-powered learning games, and standardized
tests.
- Expecting
sports coaches work in other content areas. Gone are the days when HS
football and baseball coaches were also expected to teach history, shop, or
drivers ed. Past time we
- Birthday
cupcakes. As awareness about childhood allergies spreads, more and
more schools are banning student-provided sweets.
STUDENT
EXPECTATIONS
- Holding
students accountable for attendance. Covid exacerbated a
nation-wide outbreak of chronic absenteeism. Rather than try to restore order,
however, schools have for the most part decided to give up enforcing mandatory
attendance.
- Studying
for tests. An unintended
consequence of mastery learning: students who no longer see any need to prepare
for tests but instead rely on the availability of teacher remediation and
retakes. So much more efficient to study for the test after you already
know what’s going to be on it!
- Taking
notes. Note-taking is no longer being widely taught or expected,
replaced by cellphone photos of the teacher’s slides and copies of the slides
online.
- Due
dates. In the cause of ensuring grades reflect only
mastery, many schools now forbid teachers to dock grades for late work, inadvertently
removing incentives for students to honor due dates.
- Tracking
due dates in planners. Apps that push out reminders mean students no longer
have to track this info themselves.
- Passing
notes. Students haven't actually stopped passing notes, of course:
they've just transitioned to texting.
- Reading
time on an analog clock. Rendered obsolete by cell
phones … but now that kids aren’t allowed to have their cell phones out in
class, yet most buildings are still equipped with analog clocks, this just
means that most students no longer have any idea what time it is.
PARENT
EXPECTATIONS
- Field
trip chaperones. The upshot of parents who both work: a dearth of parents
willing/able to volunteer to chaperone daytime field trips
- Classroom
volunteers. Ditto classroom volunteers, though this has also been
exacerbated by concerns over the dangers of allowing unvetted adults into
classrooms.
- Active
PTAs. Involvement in PTAs continues to diminish, driven by
improved online communication with parents, more diverse student populations,
and changing cultural expectations
- Expecting
parents to participate in school discipline. Not meant as a blanket
condemnation – there are of course still parents willing to work with schools
to enforce consequences – but school admins have largely stopped expecting this
to occur.
CURRICULUM
- Gender-specific
classes. No longer is home ec the exclusive domain of girls, shop
the exclusive domain of boys; all courses have become comfortably co-ed
- Cursive
writing; penmanship. Rendered obsolete by computers – though we’re going to
have to nurture a small group of cursive interpreters to preserve pre-2000
text.
- Grammar
instruction. Being replaced by AI-powered writing aides, in combination
with an increasing cultural tolerance for “flexible” grammar.
- Drivers
Ed. Liability-fueled fears have put the kibosh on school-based
driving instruction, though some schools still offer the classroom portion.
- Typing
class. These days, students are proficient at typing by the time they
reach 6th grade, thanks to the time they’ve spend on keyboards.
- Photography
classes. No more need for darkroom skills in this era of digital
cameras.
LIBRARY,
CAFETERIA & GYM
- Card catalogs.
Computers may have replaced grubby index cards in tiny drawers, but the Dewey
Decimal System seems safe for now.
- Stamping
cards with due dates. The library now sends students text messages when their
books are due.
- Microfiche.
Remember when newspapers were scanned and preserved on film that had to be
viewed using a special machine? Now they’re stored as .pdfs, available on any
computer.
- Lunch
boxes & thermoses. Lunch boxes have become, alas, uncool – but no one’s
missing those old glass thermoses that used to shatter and fill your soup with
shards of glass
- Lunch
money. No need to carry cash anymore; students all have debit
accounts that can be accessed by pin numbers. (A tough break for bullies.)
- Presidential
Fitness Test. Discontinued in the interest of focusing PE classes on
overall health and wellness rather than athleticism.
- Rope
climbs. Discontinued, I have always assumed, due to irrelevance (piracy
having ceased to be a career option); that, and the potential liability
associated with students plummeting through the air onto thin foam mats.
- Square
dancing. Replaced by less socially humiliating forms of physical
fitness.
- Dodgeball. Bullying
in the form of sport! Discontinued for humanitarian reasons.
- Gym
uniforms. Took us longer than we
should have to figure out they were unflattering, unsanitary, expensive, and
unnecessary
TECHNOLOGIES
& SUPPLIES
- AV
Carts. Feel almost sorry for generations of students who will
never experience the excitement of the AV cart (TV, speakers) being rolled into
the room, bring with it the promise of novelty and perhaps a quick snooze after
the lights went out!
- Computer
carts and labs. Replaced by 1:1 laptops – an expensive investment for
school districts, but perpetually buggy, outdated computer labs and carts were
definitely NOT going to be adequate to give students the time they needed to
develop computer literacy.
- Blackboards,
overhead projectors, film projectors. Replaced by white boards that
double as projection screens for the teacher’s computer. An improvement no one is regretting, except
perhaps chalk manufacturers.
- Physical
textbooks (+ grocery bag book covers). Being replaced by a
combination of online textbooks and collections of internet apps &
resources.
- Manual
pencil sharpeners & pencil boxes. No need for pencils (nor
boxes to put them in) now that students are producing their output in the form
of computer text.
- Doing
research using encyclopedias, hard copy books, index cards.
Rendered obsolete by computer-based resources and apps.
- Compasses,
protractors, slide rules, calculators. Gone the way of the
abacus!
- Pull down maps & globes. No longer necessary due to the availability of these resources on the internet … and also the fact that few schools seem to bother to teach geography any more.
