Why Education Innovation Didn’t Catch Up?
Technology has been developed tirelessly for the last century. And all that was dubbed to revolutionize education has not. Why is that? Why has everything failed to break into the system?
Even with all smart classes and the internet, there has been no significant change in the classroom. The answer lies in the simplest of the ideas. The Adjacent Possible. I came across the idea of the adjacent possible in the book, “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson. And then it me why.
When you go back to the birth of life on earth, the simplest of life forming molecules populated the earth. Every life form we see today started out with same initial ingredients, Methan (CH4), Ammonia (NH3), Hydrogen (H2) and Water (H20). And every time there was a lightning, the molecules fused together to form the basic compounds necessary for life: Sugar, Lipids, Nucleic Acid. These were just few those sparks that created them. Continuous supply of energy through sparks created all 22 amino acids that we know of today are required for life. When the first lipids recombined, they created a possibility that would ultimately lead to cell membrane. With more combinations and permutations of the same, a cell was formed and from there, life grew to be what we are today.
Now the idea of adjacent possible is that no matter what energy you supplied to the initial ingredients of life, they would not recombine to form a cell or a cellular life form. They would only be what was adjacently possible. The Sugars, Lipids, etc. This is true for any other thing we come across every day. If you were to create something new, you’ll always have to use what is at your disposal. And if you want, what you created to be distributed widely, your raw ingredients must be available in those places to make that happen.
The innovation with education went wrong exactly there. The use of tablets, smart boards or even the DVDs in classrooms are not the adjacent possible. Even if they were, the classrooms are not stable conditions under which these could survive and make any significant difference.
The only question to ask next is what is the adjacent possible for today and tomorrow and work on both of them simultaneously. We have to look at both the needs of today and the possibilities of tomorrow, and if something isn’t an adjacent possible, what is that will expand the boundaries of possibility? And do that.
