COE Exchange

In 1971, a group of 12 college educators from a small liberal arts college were working with Ken Craver, future planner for the Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, and used his Cross Matrix Process to hypothesize what education would be like over the coming three decades.

1980 — 1990

1. Breakthroughs in understanding the nature of the learning process.

2. Education compulsory for children from age 3.

3. Significant increases in money available for education.

4. Federal government assumes larger role in funding education.

5. Significant increase in use of educational technology in schools.

6. Significant increase in utilization of educational television in schools.

7. Guaranteed annual income for Americans 18 years or older.

8. Decline in control exerted by colleges over teacher education.

9. Parents have right to utilize public funds to decide type of education their children will experience.

10. Teachers and Students are on Boards of Education.

11. Teacher training is a continuous process but organized and supervised by school districts.

12. Emergence of new educational entities on a national level.

13. Students have a legal right to control their education.

14. Schools assume a greater role in sex and drug education for students.

15. Self contained classroom structure gradually disappearing.

16. Education for students not continuous. Common for students to drop out and in during the educational process.

17. Decline in concept that education has clearly stated objectives.

18. Affective education common in schools.

19. Decline in testing for knowledge.

20. Growth in process oriented testing.

The group identified the following issues:

1. The use of educational television and technology will rapidly expand and produce conflict among educators, television producers, commercial companies and government officials regarding the nature of education.

2. Questions will arise concerning to what extent parents, educators, and students should control the teaching-learning process and this will cause debate whether or not their should be private or public control over education.

3. Rapid increase in availability of federal funds will create conflict over allocation of federal funds between traditional educational institutions, new ventures and research dissemination.

4. A combination of educational technology, guaranteed annual income, surplus of teachers for traditional institutions and growing sense of pluralism in education will accentuate new thinking regarding the nature of teacher certification.

All but one of the 12 professors had taught in public schools during the late fifties and early sixties.

In examining how people view the future what is left out is just as important as what is included. “Mistaken predictions” are just as important as correct ones.