Education? There’s a need for new thinking!

Forty years ago, the National Teachers’ Association decided to censure Sesame Street for “giving children the wrong idea of education.” Yes, I’m serious. At the New York Toy Fair in ’73, I watched the people from Sesame Street in a very heated argument with the teachers’ group that had shown up to protest Sesame Street being presented as “the future of early learning.”

Two years later? The same associations endorsed Sesame Street for getting children started with fundamentals at an early age. Sometimes, times of change and “newness” have to be absorbed to allow educators to realize the real benefits.

And so it is with remote learning, tablets and computers. Look, every teacher knows that kids learn at different rates and in different ways. Tablet or computer hookups allow repetition, exploration and individualism.

Yet, already, we’re hearing teachers’ unions bemoaning remote education. What they have to do is learn to trust their students, not police them, but teach them how such electronic devices work, what they offer in expanded learning and be able to tunnel down to areas of real interest. Trust the kids — don’t ban the tablets when school returns to in-person norms — make them part of the permanent learning experience.

Schools have to become inspirational centers, a marketing platform for learning and training — a civilized, modern place where children can follow and find their dreams. Is there a need for structure? For repetition? For proof of learning? Of course. But what difference does it make, past the basics of The Count on Sesame Streets as he begins counting, if a student has an open book for a test or uses their tablet — or even their phone? Knowing where the answer is, being able to use the pathways to discover the information — these are the methods of the future, not learning by rote.

Take the example of the Hole in the Wall program by India’s Sugata Mitra… tens of thousands of the poorest children, given access to free computers and the internet, learned, lifted themselves from poverty and found a way forward. Children want to learn, it’s in their DNA. Now, 22 years later, the Hole in the Wall program has grown, spread to more than 300,000 free public access terminals. It’s not charity, it’s commercial enterprise, free education.

Of course, there’s a caveat — internet connectivity. Until we change all internet providers from commercial enterprises to publicly controlled utilities — just like your water, electricity and gas supply — there will always be a status divide between those who have a fast hook-up and Wi-Fi and those who have to pirate or wait until they get to school. That’s an issue that teachers should be at the forefront demonstrating for. Where’s a forward-looking Association of American Educators when you need them to fight for what’s right?

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, lives in New Mexico.