海角大神

Sometimes a new idea seems so obvious that we slap聽our foreheads and wonder what we were thinking all聽along. In the early 19th century, the German educator聽Friedrich Froebel came up with the idea that young聽children should be encouraged in what they naturally want to do: play. Teachers could help them along聽through games and other forms of loosely structured education,聽bearing in mind that each child learns at a different pace. The聽charming word he gave to his concept is now used worldwide:聽kindergarten.

Kindergarten was an early example of 鈥渇lipping聽the classroom.鈥� Before Froebel, children were ignored, lectured to, or, worse, treated as the newest聽entrants in the labor pool. Froebel made early education into a garden of care and encouragement. But for all the聽success that the kindergarten movement has enjoyed in the past聽century and a half, its spirit has mostly stopped at first grade, leaving elementary and secondary education stuck in the old paradigm聽of a teacher standing in front of 20 or 30 students teaching the聽same subject in the same way to everyone.

Not that teachers, students, parents, and administrators wanted聽it that way. All sorts of new techniques were tried over the years.聽Technology 鈥� from film strips to computers, educational TV to the聽Internet 鈥� was embraced, though mostly as an add-on. The post-K聽pattern endured. Teachers held forth, students took notes, and everybody worked on the same reading assignment and math problem at the same pace, even if some children were left behind.

That is changing now thanks to 鈥渂lended learning." What blended learning is not about聽(and this is refreshing) is new hardware. Flooding a school with聽iPads isn鈥檛 the point. As the Monitor鈥檚 Amanda Paulson explains in a cover story examining the trend,聽blended learning is the practical use of an ever-improving online聽curriculum combined with a rethinking of the classroom itself.聽

Children are encouraged to log on, listen, and learn and at their聽own speed. Some blast ahead; others work with concepts they聽find difficult until the light goes on. And teachers are freed from聽lecturing and can act as tutors, mentors, and coaches. That yields聽more cultivation and care of individual students.

聽OK. There鈥檚 another factor at work in blended learning. School聽budgets are tight and will only get tighter. Digital delivery of lectures, exercises, and tests saves personnel costs. But whatever聽the drivers, the results, as you鈥檒l read, are promising, and聽adoption of this smarter, more integrated form of聽K-12 teaching is spreading fast.

Is this just the latest educational fad? There have聽been dozens over the decades, from new math to聽open classrooms to whole-language education. Fads are urgent聽and promise quick results. Knock down walls! Throw out the聽phonics books! Master 鈥渟et theory鈥� and Base 8 to help win the聽space race! Blended learning doesn鈥檛 seem like that. It is evolutionary and organic, more technique than goal. As one educator told Amanda, 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 set out to be blended. We said, 鈥楲et鈥檚 rede-fine what it means to be college-ready,鈥� and then we backwards-planned a school.鈥�

Perhaps the most important benefit to blended learning is that聽it flips the classroom, tailoring education to the different needs and speeds of students. Teachers become gardeners rather than聽foremen. Friedrich Froebel would have liked that.

John Yemma is the Monitor's editor at large. He can be reached at yemma@csmonitor.com.