a view on education from Ken Wilson (Nobel in Physics). [ Ken is largely credited

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Posted-Date: Sun, 18 Sep 1994 10:56:58 -0400
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 1994 10:29:05 -0400
From: Ken Wilson <kgw () pacific mps ohio-state edu>
To: farber () central cis upenn EDU
Subject: Re:  Hi Ken, whats up


I have spent the last four years engaged full time in education reform,
as a co-PI on Ohio's SSI project: SSI stands for "Statewide Systemic Initiative
in mathematics and science education". I have a book being published Nov 21 on
my analysis of education's problems. It is called Redesigning Education. Bennett
Daviss is the co-author, and Henry Holt the publisher.


I have become a sociologist: this transformation was necessary so that I could
make sense of the problems blocking education reform, which are mainly
sociological in character.


My education reform initiative includes bringing teachers onto the Internet.
The State has a network serving all schools, but unfortunately its
staff is mostly used to Decnet rather than Unix and TCP-IP, so the quality of
service is poor. We tried to get NSF support through their recent networking
solicitation, which was supposed to help SSI projects like ours;
unfortunately, our proposal was rejected. My understanding is that all proposals
from other SSI initiatives were rejected too.


[I sent Ken a copy of Ericom Editorial and asked him for more  of his
ideas. djf]


Posted-Date: Mon, 19 Sep 1994 17:07:19 -0400
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 1994 17:07:12 -0400
From: Ken Wilson <kgw () pacific mps ohio-state edu>
To: farber () central cis upenn edu
Subject: Re:  Hi Ken, whats up


Thanks for your paper on networking. As to my becoming a sociologist,
I found out that education in the U. S. is unable to change - at either the K-12
or higher education levels  - to meet the needs of today. Instead, education is
fifty years out of date and becoming more obsolete every day. There are many
barriers to change, all well documented in the sociological literature on
education reform. But what it comes down to is that there are innumerable
non-communicating cultures in education - from physics teachers to
principals to third grade teachers to parents to school board members to
members of Congress. Noone has been able to produce a vision of a
modernized system of education that meets the needs of all these cultures
simultaneously. Hence everyone pushes their own special interest instead,
creating a hopeless gridlock.I have now
formulated a vision that responds to the problems of all these different
constituencies, but is so revolutionary that I would have to teach it in
sustained courses of instruction: it cannot be disseminated in a short
"vision statement".


        If education does start to change and modernize, it will become the
dominant source of social change in the 21st century. Gigabit networking
will be a process in the background by comparison, no matter how spectacular its
consequences as seen by technologists. At least, this is my conclusion.


My book Redesigning Education will start to introduce the changes that
would come with improved education. I need to write many more.