Social Networking

News

Social networking

Gordon Brown

Branchie's do

home

Brian Smith
Educationalist

I trained as a teacher in Worcester in the UK in the 1960s. How it seems like yesterday but what a different place the world was then. Let me give you one small example.

A phone call in 1964
To illustrate the point consider this: I was 18 years old and in order to telephone my girlfriend, who lived 100 miles away from Worcester, I had to go the phone booth in the hall of residence and dial the operator who would connect me for three minutes. It was expensive and at the end of three minutes the operator's voice would interrupt, saying "your time is up, caller, do you wish to pay for extra time?"

On one occasion I decided to get enough money together to have a proper chat for a whole half hour - an unheard of thing to do on a long distance call in those days! It cost me "one pound ten" (that's one pound and ten shillings - or £1.50 in today's coinage). I amassed a bagful of pennies, threepenny bits and shillings ready to feed into the slot.

But don't sit there thinking the cost of the phone call was £1.50. Oh no. You have to remember that people didn't earn as much then - it was only a few years earlier that we as a family were thrilled when Dad's Civil Service Salary passed £1,000 a year. Compare that to the average £25,000 now.

No, the cost of my phone call was somewhere between £20 and £60 (depending on how you calculate it) as you can see in the table which was created by this fascinating website: http://eh.net/hmit/ (I used the UK page at http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/). (You can click on the picture to compare the methods). That was reckless spending on a student budget.

£40 for 30 minutes!
The point I'm making is that 1964 seemed pretty modern at the time. You could phone anyone, anywhere in the world, whenever you wanted to. Admittedly, it was at a price, and they had to have a telephone (most people did). Oh, and they had to be at home when you rang! The operator would simply connect you.

We all thought it was a great advance when STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) appeared. You could dial, yourself, to someone in another part of the UK without having to go through the operator! Amazing.

Unlimited call time for no cost at all
An 18 year old today can chat with a friend anywhere in the world for an unlimited time. The person doesn't even have to be at home, at work, or even in a building or kiosk. They can be up a mountain or standing beside the Parthenon in Athens (I mention this because I've made a phone call from that very spot). There's still a cost and currently there's an issue about roaming charges but you can see the point. And if you choose to call Skype-to-Skype using computers the call can in fact be absolutely free!

The reason I have digressed for so long is to draw attention to how life has been changing during my lifetime. This is just one tiny part of it - making a phone call. During those forty years the world has changed in every single aspect. We have changed from an industrial to an information society; the notion of a job for life with a pension is a thing of the past; and we are no longer passive consumers of information; we are creators and broadcasters.

These changes are profound and far-reaching but it's not as if the human race has never met change before. We changed from an agricultural society into an industrial one between 1700 and 1900 and by the time that revolution had run its course every single aspect of our lives had changed - from where we are born to what happens to our bodies after death.

A Literate Population
In 1700 only the ruling classes could read and write. By 1900 things had changed such that every single person received an education in Maths, Sciences, Humanities and Languages. Why did this happen? Why did we start to teach children to read and write? Many Members of Parliament at that time stood up and said, most vehemently, "We must not teach the lower orders to read because they will get ideas above their station" (this was only a few years before my grandmother was born!)

And the reason is that for some reason that I haven't fully worked out, industrialisation needed an educated workforce. An agricultural society didn't; an industrial one did. Can you tell me exactly why it was so important? All I know is that it was absolutely crucial and the culmination was the 1870 Education Act which introduced compulsory education for every child.

What does an Information Society Demand?
This brings me back to today's world. Just as we once moved from agriculture to industry and education was transformed forever, so education is at the heart of the new change. Look at what a hot political potato it has become since the 1980s when computers first really hit the mainstream. Look at how many changes and initiatives there have been as Governments tinker with the system.

All governments currently seem to believe that using computers to automate the teaching, testing and reporting of the 1870s curriculum (which, at its heart, is what we're still teaching) is what an information society needs. I believe most passionately that they are wrong. I believe that a new curriculum, a new school system, a new education model even - is needed. And all around me I see people across the world who agree. They include teachers, leaders, educationalists and industrialists. I follow many of them on Twitter.

During the 1800s there must have been a pressure building. Like some great social pressure cooker the need for "Education for All" was building. I have a powerful sense of that same pressure building up all around us right now. I'm convinced that within the next few years that pressure will come to a head and we shall see another great change in education. Last time it was the introduction of "Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic" - and children attending institutions and sitting in rows. What exactly will it be this time?

What do you think the change will be when it comes?