Grace Hopper, a former United States rear admiral and computer development pioneer, once said, “The most dangerous phrase in the language is, ‘We've always done it this way.’”
It is well known by behaviourists that humans inherently resist change. We prefer the safety and comfort of the status quo versus the tension and disease that comes with uncertainty of the unknown.
The way we have always done things has become the benchmark against which we gauge our perceptions of change. With each generation having its own threshold or comfort level, even the most basic changes can seem an insurmountable challenge. Everyone has an opinion!
The Alberta math petition, started by a concerned parent in the Calgary area, has fuelled great debate on past and present classroom practice and leverages a healthy skepticism at proposed pedagogical shifts and curriculum redesign. Wanting a return to rote memorization skills and a back-to-basics approach to teaching and learning, this petition has gained traction, especially from those who are not fully informed about the intent and vision of the government’s 2009 document entitled Inspiring Education.
How children learn today has changed considerably from how I learned, which in turn, was very different from how my parents learned. I am certain that the abacus raised a few eyebrows when it was first introduced. The move from chalkboards to whiteboards to Smart boards precipitated changes, but also have more in common than one might think.
Information is made available to learners in myriad ways. Whether ink, printed text or digital media, we live in a time when the sheer volume, pace and flow of information can be overwhelming. Skills and strategies to help students master various fluencies are vital to survival, let alone success, in the future.
There are benefits to knowing how to do things the old way. As a navigator, I must know how to use a sextant and a rolling ruler to fix the ship’s position because at some point the power will go off and all my high-tech gear will not be of any use. I need to know mental math because I may not have access to the calculator on my smartphone. I need to know that I can trust and rely that others around me will have a similar skillset. If anything, since the power seems to be more on than off these days, I need to better embrace the new ways of learning inherent to our digital age.
I know several people who do not embrace the “new-fangled gadgets and gizmos” of the modern era. They are quite content to live in the past; it is their right. It is also the right of every citizen to have that healthy level of skepticism or what I prefer to call inquiry, in asking the tough questions about what is the best way to move forward with education, health care, housing, transportation … everything. The back-to-basics bandwagon, while valid, is an outdated mode.
In 1953 Grace Hopper invented the compiler, a program that enabled computers at the time to understand English instructions. This later evolved into work with COBOL and other computing languages and interfaces. She understood that the dangers of the unknown were well worth the risk in moving society forward and that the argument, we've always done it this way simply didn’t hold water. I hope Albertans will come to feel the same way.
Tim Cusack is an educator, writer, and member of the naval reserve.
