In the wake of the holiday gift giving season and the trajectory of increased online shopping it is worth taking a look at changing trends in commerce and how that may or may not apply to education.  One of these trends is an ever increasing volume of package deliveries throughout the world.  The first part of this examination really goes beyond holiday shopping habits or the number of packages delivered, and seeks to recognize the vastly changed landscape that we live in today compared to 20-30 years ago.  This is, however, not exclusively as a result of changes in technology. 

The exponential changes that we have witnessed in all aspects of daily living from communications and media, to medicine and influences in many workplace situations have accelerated in recent years.  A few short decades ago many of the norms of today were, if not unthinkable, certainly not practical.  We now live in ways that represent a wholesale shift in how we obtain, sort, and create products and services the world over.  Never before was it possible to capture and produce ideas all day, all night, in virtually every corner of the globe.

Recently, I watched a short film that examined the Worldport UPS sorting facility based in Louisville, Kentucky.  Looking at this film one could not help but marvel at the engineering genius that propels the capacity of this facility to reach unprecedented efficiencies in the processing of packages—large and small.  Millions, upon millions of important documents, odd shaped packages, and the like are sorted through a facility that is the equivalent of over one hundred miles of conveyor belts, all guaranteed for speedy delivery.  The mega computers and systems in place to make this happen reflect advancements in science, organizational structure, and the pressure to move faster in a globally competitive marketplace.

One may see this and ask why we can’t apply the metrics of efficiency and output to education.  But sorting packages, whether by hand or machine, with or without a wide range of technically sophisticated systems is not the same as the utility of sorting educational systems or students.   We may have the capacity to do so, but seeing the educational establishment on a plane that seeks to competitively rank students and teachers into different containers and efficiently move them through the process to achieve a higher rate of return is unwise.  The current platform—Race to the Top, APPR—which claim to be the elixir for what ails American education, namely ways to rank and sort schools using a systemic, technically advanced methodology misses the educational mark for our nation.

We cannot, and should not, ignore the incredible value these tools and systems may have as a benefit to students in any school, anywhere in the world.  The current application of these tools and systems, however, creates a climate of fear and mistrust, rather than a culture of cooperation and a potential renaissance of enlightened and thoughtful communities for learning.  We would be wise to marshal the forces represented in these advancements and leverage their power in the service of new ways to learn and work with one another beyond the artificial boundaries of the schoolhouse walls, or as a result of racing to beat the competition.