Less is More.Human knowledge has become vast. Every digital citizen can publish to world-wide audience instantly and devices allow access to exponentially growing content almost anywhere on Earth. Connectivity is still unreliable but it is there. Developing countries play literacy games and they have incentives to make sure that their citizens own a device and stay connected to a network. While we could consider a general problem, let me stick to educating children in the traditional sense.
Some background (Also watch their older/newer talks if you have time - click on Full Bio link to find more videos on TED page) Goals: Lesser amount of content (textbooks or other digital artifacts) presented with a lot of crosscutting concepts. No separate subjects. Everything is intertwined. No age based class/grade separation though it could end up that way statistically (but let that happen automatically rather than schools and govt. deciding that apriori). Assessment should be purely diagnostic and feedback should be in the form of reinforcement (not just review of the same old content). Competitive assessment or standardized testing could still exist for institutions (academic or employment) but they might use other criteria also for building a diverse work-force as per society's current needs.
For those who are pressed for time, here are couple of dimensions presented in the exec summary: Scientific and Engineering Practices
Crosscutting Concepts
Can we do this in the next few years? Anyone aware of this type of initiatives for K-12? Do we have to keep kids in the schools for 18 years with no continuity across subjects in a given year and also across academic years? Does every kid need to be on the same page at the same time during school years?
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