By Ashley Benning
For centuries, education in the western world has looked something like this:
- A teacher standing in the front of a room.
- Students in rows facing the teacher.
- Primers or textbooks open to the same page on every desk.
- All students working on the same assignments in class,
the same homework in the evening. - Courses starting and stopping according to a bell or alarm,
with students spending the same number of minutes in every
subject over the course of a year.
This factory model follows the Pirate Code: Whoever falls behind, is left behind. For those students who can keep up, who can jump through the hoops, who learn best from lecture and reading, this model works.
The factory model of education is ideal in a society in which the following are true:
- all students are at the same learning level and share the same preferred learning modality
- financial restrictions do not allow for additional sections or courses
- teachers are in short supply.
Luckily for Chaminade, none of the above are true.
Read more about blended learning in the spring/summer issue of Chaminade Now hitting mailboxes this week.