Een iets radicaal voorstel voor scholen

Ik heb vaak de vraag gesteld “Als je de koning van de wereld zou kunnen zijn voor een dag, wat zou jij doen?” Eerst en vooral, Ik zou mezelf koning permanent maken, maar dat is niet het punt. Hier is mijn licht radicale voorstel om de tweede wat ik zou doen als ik koning was voor een dag zou zijn.

Ik ben onderdeel van een club die haalt de recyclage in onze school in de ochtend. Laat me je vertellen, verzamelen we veel papier: als ik verzamel het papier van misschien 15 kamers die niet hadden hun papieren hebben verzameld in een paar dagen, Ik kan vullen een hele prullenbak. Niet de kleine vuilnisbakken die u in uw huis, Ik bedoel die zo groot als conciërges gebruiken. Dat is veel.

So where was I? Oh, rechts, my proposal. Before I get to that, imagine life in 1911 (read about it.) It took weeks to get anywhere, telephones were bleeding edge, people wore corsets and silk hats, and kids used textbooks, paper, and pencils in school. Het is 2011 now. You can go from New York to Beijing and back in two or three days, phones that can’t browse the internet are considered bad, people wear t-shirts and jeans, en… kids use textbooks paper, and pencils in school. Everything’s changed completely… wait. Except one thing. Schools.

Schools are stuck in the 1960’s. They need to catch up to the times, and the way to do that is to go paperless. Here’s some easy ways they can, in order from easiest to implement to hardest to implement.

1. Instead of having students print out assignments and hand them in, just have them e-mail the assignment to the teacher. Really easy.
2. Have homework available online (as a PDF or text document, maybe.) Students can complete it on their computers and e-mail it to the teacher (see point 1.)
3. Instead of having students take notes in class, have the notes be available online. Not only does this save loads of paper, it frees up class time for discussion/reviewing homework/whatever teachers want to do.
4. Have students take tests on the computer (maybe through an online survey tool, or preferably through a dedicated test app.)
5. Put textbooks online for students to use at home and have cheap netbooks/tablets/laptops for students to access them at school. Could be expensive, but it saves a ton of paper.

The benefits of doing that? Many:

1. No paper used (environmental benefit.)
2. Students don’t have to carry as much around.
3. Huge savings on textbooks/ink/paper.

Ontkenning: eI have no teaching experience whatsoever so I don’t know if any of this would be practical. So that’s why my proposal should be called radical, even though it seems pretty sensible to me.

So there’s my $0.02. What do you think?