Do you remember the time when we had to look at the clock or count different coins for math? While I still see that in some of the books, I'm pretty sure that things will change very very soon.
The Digitization of Contexts
Many countries are moving into digitizing money. With the outbreak of Covid-19, this has expedited the adoption of e-wallets. What this means is that eventually, we may stop seeing physical money being transacted.
The same applies for reading the time. But with digital clocks and most of us reading time from our smartphones, is learning how to read the time actually necessary?
The Practical Applications of Those Lessons
We used to teach children about physical money and how to tell the time because those were what they had to learn to be part of society. However, can you imagine teaching children about that now? How about in the future? It is interesting to think about what we will end up teaching them in education in the future.
I wonder if we will teach them about video making or coding at an even earlier age. My children asked me about how cartoons were made the other day and I simulated the entire process via an app called Toontastic. It's pretty awesome, you get to drag your characters around and record your voice to create your own animation. This was because, believe it or not, Youtube had no videos on how cartoons or animations were made.
I suppose we may even teach children how to find all the information they need online. Learning may take a huge shift from being more teacher-directed to self-directed, which is not a bad thing. But, there are downsides to this.
The Good in the Old
Call me old fashioned, but I like the library. I mean, sure you have an entire library right at your fingertips. This can be in the form of your tablet or smartphone. But nothing beats heading to the library and discovering new books. But when it comes to money and telling the time from an old analog clock, I think children can still a lot about past technologies and some math concepts. Take telling the time, for example, I remember learning a lot about multiplications from telling the time. Also, You get to learn about addition and subtraction from exposing themselves to the use of physical currency.
Conclusion
However, what I'm really interested in is if we will continue to teach the past in the present. No, I'm not talking about history, but really how we used to do certain things in the past. I suppose as much as there is some value in learning it, times change, and so do certain concepts. I just hope that my children and the many others in the world can adapt to the change.