Teachers and Classrooms – Do we need them?

Back when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, we didn’t have the Internet.

My school didn’t have lockers; and so, every textbook and notebook required for a particular day had a very special place in my cotton canvas rucksack – which is probably why, by the end of week one, they looked like something out of a dumpster.

When my lovely teacher/s assigned us “homework”, anything not available in the prescribed textbook would have to be researched at the school library (or elsewhere). Figuring out how to use the Dewey Decimal System was another challenge.

Classrooms usually consisted of thirty tables and chairs and one blackboard. And one teacher.

The Internet (also known as the Web)

Some dude called Bob or Tim, or something came along and invented the World Wide Web. This allows computer networks around the world to talk to each other and would eventually mean that people talked less to each other verbally and more to each other by way of inane little emoticons and TikTok videos.

The internet is quite big. Large enough to make the Encyclopaedia Britannica seem like the blurb on a breakfast cereal box. (For those people who were born in the 21^st Century – aka Millennials – the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a Book in 32 Volumes which had information on many subjects. One of those Volumes had so much information and so many pages, that if you smacked someone with one, it could cause permanent scarring or even death).

The three R’s

Learning used to be about the three R’s – Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. That makes a lot of sense. (Now it’s reduce, reuse and recycle – but that’s a subject for another day).

These days you can get your computer to read stuff; you can talk into your phone / computer and (through speech recognition) it will type for you; and you can use macro’s and excel and the online calculator to do your sums.

No need to write longhand anymore. I think the last time I wrote anything was to fill in a form at the doctor’s surgery.

Are teachers redundant?

The days of having one teacher, standing up at the blackboard, making his screechy scribblings the whole day, is long gone.

The days of having one textbook is long gone. As far as I am concerned, our text should only be a guide on what to study – or should I say research?

Students must learn to research, select, organize, and share their findings. Before answering questions, students should learn how to use the many resources available on the internet, and take time to experiment, analyse, and innovate.

Are classrooms redundant?

Perhaps. The traditional classroom, certainly. Whether or not we need to gather in one (geographical) location, to be taught – is under discussion.

Desks all facing the blackboard and students scrambling to get a seat at the back of the class, may

now be obsolete. Blackboards morph into laptops, tablets and mobile phones and teachers can do their presentation from anywhere, including their bathtubs – as long as they don’t have the camera turned on.

Don’t get me wrong; I believe that teachers are still a necessary evil. They have done the hard yards and they (should) know what works; they must provide “signposts” for their students to learn and discover. Sometimes, we all need a teacher to guide us, just as we need our peers to do the same.

PS: Obviously, I can’t cater for every eventuality in a 500-word article. Other things that I haven’t touched on are:

Cultural differences

Circumstance

Personality differences

Teamwork