Throughout Ashley Hinck’s brilliantly written piece, Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom, readers are transfixed by her ability to depict one of the most profound fights within the field of education, standardisation versus authenticity. This, as depicted in Hinck’s article, has remarkable implications both for students and educators. For the former, the battle of standardisation versus authenticity shapes their entire outlook with regards to learning. If standardisation remains, the belief of a binary right or wrong will be ever present within both their educational and personal lives, thus, robbing students of their creativity and their ability to learn from trial and error. For the latter party in this titanic struggle, this educational matchup means that teaching styles and years of practice may have to be altered or abandoned altogether. Thus, it is easily discernible that the main theme of Hinck’s Digital Ghosts in the Modern Classroom has both important short and long-term consequences.
If teaching professionals wish to stand by the established orthodoxy of Standardised Education, students’ outlook on education, and indeed life, could be characterised by, as Hinck stated in her piece, “disconnect between their expectations…and what they actually encounter.”
However, if Standardised Education is archived into the annals of educational history, teachers can usher in a new age; this brave new world of education would see students free to experiment, use trial and error methodology, and make mistakes.
From the reading of Hinck’s article, it is overtly clear that she, along with a myriad of other educators, wish to see education traverse the path offered by Authentic Education.
Please enjoy the video below.
Cheers,
Thomas Merritt