Monday, December 12, 2005

Organic Education

Hugh Osborn presents some new ideas in his article Organic Education. (There is also a presentation that you can listen to at this link.)

The interesting part of the theory I think is this idea of mechanistic vs. organic education. By mechanistic Osborn means “organized like 19th century factories, with hierarchical, or vertical, command-and-control structures, little flexibility and virtually no openness to innovation.” (ie. our present educational system) Opposite this mechanistic model is organic education—“highly innovative and flexible; they are far less hierarchical than mechanistic systems and are thus referred to as horizontal or ‘flat.’”

By nature, those of us who have a desire for educational change and understand the powerful role that technology will play are naturally “organic” as Osborn would term it. We are constantly looking at new ways of doing things, working with others to solve problems and create effective solutions. The stressors in our jobs are almost always caused by the mechanistic elements that undermine our work—those elements as old as time itself. We constantly butt heads with 19th century thinking, hierarchies, dictates from on high, and we struggle with a lack of flexibility and innovation.

Osborn does provide a scenario for changing all of this. It seems a bit pie-in-the-sky (he makes the change seem so easy), but it is an interesting theory worth pursuing, especially as we believe that change in our educational system is fundamental to a prosperous future for our children.

Posted by Randy on 12/12 at 06:40 PM
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