Three years ago, I wrote about the idea that Education is a Toaster. In part, it was a commentary to my professional organization – the AECT – but many non-members read my blogs as well and I don’t think you can actually have a rational conversation about a professional organization dedicated to Education without periodically tying the organization back to the field. Check out the comments to see how angry one reader was.
the goal of education is to change learners in predictable ways. I don’t care if we start with whole wheat, cinnamon-raisin, or Wonder(tm) bread, the goal is to put a little toasty crust on it. Along the way, there may be some un-intended consequences but those are, for the most part, external to the dynamic. The results may not be trivial to the toast — the swelling of raisins within the body of the bread may cause some interesting side effects — but the predictable results are the ones we care about.
Education as Toaster.
There’s a follow on post on the use of metaphor as well.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:13 AM
To say the first commenter was angry is a definite understatement. I can see her point but I also saw yours. The kids are all different and they learn differently and we as teachers are supposed to stick them in the same little box (the classroom), teach the same content (apply heat), in the same way (evenly for the same length of time), and get the same outcome (the toast). When you look at it that way, it doesn’t make sense at all, does it. It is not a put down on the teachers, instead it needs to be a wake up call for all the bigwigs in the education system. The teachers are putting for the effort but they can’t do much if their hands are tied by the bureaucracy of the system (maybe like trying to make the toast and they won’t let you plug in the toaster).