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In the foreword to 'Millennium', his amazing history of the last thousand years, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto imagines a cosmic galaxy of the distant future, in which there is a single exhibit about the planet Earth. Beneath a piece of chainmail and a Coke can is the caption: 'Earth, 1000-2000'.

It's interesting how even a thousand years of technological improvement can be reduced to two mundane pieces of metal. It raises an interesting question: was the alien curator too lazy to tell the story of Earth properly - or is it true that, seen from a distance, the whole thousand years can be summed up as ever better use of metal and the emergence of consumerism?

The dichotomy of near-far perspectives applies just as well to schools. What two objects might we put forward for the British education section of this galactic museum? Some would argue for a piece of chalk and a marker pen. Others would argue for a cane and an ASBO. Optimists might include a chart showing improved literacy rates. Pessimists might include one of those Times articles showing that children today can't do long division. I'm tempted to call for a couple of tablets - one made of slate, the other a battery-powered PC.

Photo 1: British education, 1850-2000



Visiting alien curators would doubtless ask tough questions about British schools if that was the focus of their study. While educationalists would agree that schools have always tried to incorporate the latest technology into their work, outsiders would observe that the biggest change in the classroom between 1900 and 2000 was the colour of the blackboard. When it comes to the overall system of education, very little has changed. We still assume that school means 30 children of the same age doing the same thing at the same time in the same way for the same period of time, all under the watchful gaze of an adult authority figure up front.

When I was a child, music was sold in two versions: 33rpm and 45rpm plastic records. As I entered my teens, records slowly gave way to CD. Now, CD has been overwhelmed by a new download culture that allows individuals to carry tens of thousands of songs around in a device little bigger than a cigarette packet.

Despite the many changes in format, interest in music has remained a constant (just as metalwork links chainmail and cans of Coke). Yet, when we look at schools, it seems that it is the format that remains the same despite changes in almost everything else in society. When schools were established, we lived in an agricultural economy. We have since been in and out of an industrial age, watched the rise (and coming fall) of the service age, and are now trying to establish ways of working that will suit the knowledge economy. Fifty years ago, two languages were spoken in the school across the road from me (English and Latin); now it's over fifty; and where once we said "May God go with you", now we say "May your god go with you."

How strange that, in this context, we still shape our lessons as if they are Christian religious services. Our children, dressed up for the occasion, come into the room and sit silently in rows facing the front, just like the congregation. The teacher plays the role of parish priest - an authority figure who stands at the front, providing information that children are encouraged to remember and repeat. Knowledge is salvation.

Despite a wholly changed society, and the many opportunities we have to do things differently, we still allow children time off at Easter and summer to help with planting and harvesting. We move them around like cars passing down a production line. Each teacher will recognise the model: assemble the raw materials, add value, move it out.

While the rest of society has used technology to transform the way in which we do things, schools tend to accept new technology only when it reinforces the old conventions of teaching, or when its saturation of the market is so complete that it cannot be ignored.

Photo 2: Laptops are designed to be used individually and on the move, but in schools they become compromised by the desire to teach collectively and in classrooms



Think about all the technology that has become commonplace in society over the last 25 years. They include video recorders, MP3 players, mobile phones, remote controls, laptops, webcams, GPS software, heart monitors and the internet. If we map these truly transformative devices against a school we see immediately that acceptance and rejection depends on how easily they can be integrated into long-established conventions of teaching. These include conventions about the teacher's place at the front, control and familiarity.


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