Schooled.

The idea of schooling in 2025 will have changed.  I believe that as our world becomes increasingly connected, fast-paced and accessible, schooling focuses more on characteristics and skills and less on content.  Content will still have its role! Understanding biology, math, literature and social studies will still be very important, if not more so.  But more importantly, students will need to have certain skills to help them succeed. It will not be enough to get good grades and test scores.  Students (and the future work force) will need to be problem solvers.  They will need to be able to communicate effectively.  They will need to be flexible, understanding and tolerant.  These very abstract things will be more important in 2025 than the concrete data that seems to be the focus in 2011.

“Schooling” means not only learning in a formal school setting, but learning through experience.  It is really through experience that most of our “schooling” occurs.  We are motivated by good experiences.  Some would argue that true learners are motivated by the bad as well.   We remember experiences, not lectures, notes, tests, essays or homework.  It is exactly that that will engage ALL students in learning.  Teachers need to focus on providing experiences in the classroom to help understanding.  I think this is the true definition of differentiation.  By adding difference ways of experiencing the content, more students will be able to access it, understand it, analyze and synthesize it. 

There are many ways to do this.   In history, it can mean listening to the latest American Idol contestant sing a Gershwin song.  The students will then have experienced that song in their world, not in the 1920s.  It becomes relevant and accessible, and thusly, memorable in the larger picture of the Jazz Age.  It can mean using manipulation items in math to understand how things are broken down.  It can mean seeing the results of chemical change in a science lab.  Ultimately, I believe that by differentiating instruction teachers provide many ways for students to experience something so that all students can find a way to learn that is meaningful for them.