I was reading this article by Shelly Banjo for Bloomberg Gadfly, and even though my career has nothing to do with commerce or shopping malls or anything related to them, I kind of knew where the article was going before they got to the punchline because I think we'll see the exact same thing happen in education and I've been saying so for a while.
Actually, I've been saying so for so long that I'm tired of saying it to my friends and colleagues, so here's a new blog. Welcome everyone!
Anyhow, here's the gist: The old model of shopping malls meant that they contract with "anchor stores" like Sears, J.C. Penney and Macy's to be the tried and true attraction that will guarantee traffic to the mall. These department stores were the backbone of American commerce for consumers who could get all their shopping done and their car worked on in one place.
Obviously, online shopping has taken a giant bite out of brick and mortar department stores. Teens might still like hanging out in malls (I honestly don't know, I haven't been to one in years) but not many other people do, because it's just so much easier to get stuff online, n'est-ce pas? So, as the article points out, the giant department stores are closing.
One would think this would be a problem for people who own malls. Nope. People are looking for something to DO when they go out not something to buy. Replace the giant space that used to be Macy's with something more about "experience" than something for shopping. Movie theaters, laser tag, opium dens, whatever- that's what will get people out of the house.
Schools are much slower to react, but they will suffer the same fate. A lot of content and quite a number of skills can be delivered to students far more effectively, and without the stress and drama, through means other than the traditional high school day. Online learning is getting mixed reviews because so many places do it badly, but think about the time you needed to repair the toilet that was running or learned to play Freebird on guitar or that time you had to diagnose the problem with the washing machine, and you found the answers on Youtube or some forum online- THAT is online learning too and we all do it every day.
Today's students are a different breed than they were even when I started teaching in the early 1990s. Anxiety is a huge problem in American schools and so is funding and so is the growing teacher shortage. I predict that during my lifetime the primary role of brick and mortar schools will be to act as the social component missing from online learning. The students can get their three R's online on their own schedule- they will come to school to learn softer skills and how to interact with other humans.
Frankly, I look forward to that day.
