Can education mimic the clean energy transformation?

How does transformation occur? Very slowly, then seemingly all at once.
 
(That’s a version of a Hemingway quote, and a good argument that as important as STEM education is, let’s not forget the humanities!)
 
It’s also a reminder that when a transformation is underway, it can be difficult to perceive it as such. Only when it’s well underway, or after, does it appear clear and perhaps even inevitable.
 
We are currently living in a clean energy transformation, especially the makeover of the transportation system to electricity. We are not far from when the next generation will wonder what a “gas pedal” was in the same way my nieces and nephews look at me quizzically when I say I have them on “speed dial.” (For all of you wondering if I can really be that old, I do say that at least somewhat jokingly. But yes, I am that old.)
 
Now that electric cars are becoming relatively common, it’s useful to think about how long it has been since the Prius emerged as the first mass market hybrid car (about twenty years). Now it’s clear that gas/electric hybrid cars turned out to be mostly a dead end, but a valuable dead end as they introduced the concept of battery-driven cars to the broad public. Then fully electric cars came on the market. They became popular enough that most people got used to the idea, and Tesla made electric cars a luxury item. All that laid the groundwork for what appears to be a likely next step where in the next decade or so charging stations may become more common than gas stations. Just this week came the announcement that Ford is planning to build 150,000 Ford Lightning trucks in a bid to capture the electric pickup truck market.
 
This momentum is also apparent in solar and in other areas of de-carbonizing energy production. Not as quickly as some of us would like, but it's still a remarkable transformation.
 
In a few years the transformation may be so well underway that it appears, at that point, inevitable.  But the reality is that the transformation happened because, among other things:

• Hundreds, then thousands, then millions of people made buying choices supporting electric cars, from my father-in-law being a Prius early adopter to my brother-in-law being a huge Tesla fan and early buyer.

• Others chose to work within the transformation, including a friend developing his skills to design small-scale, distributed solar power.

• State and local governments passed key laws allowing and then supporting renewable energy, paving the way for large federal investments.

Could education be undergoing a similar large-scale transformation?
 
It’s hard to say in the moment. But if in ten years we see a landscape where students can easily choose among instructional modalities that suit them, where families of young students have flexibility of where and when their kids learn, where teenagers are actively pursuing their dreams while in high school….
 
We may look back at the pioneers. Individuals like Sal Khan who took a limited form of online learning mainstream. Organizations like ASU Prep Digital that added to their own schools while incorporating elements of Khan's work in new ways. Public agencies like Florida Virtual School that reached scale like few other public entities, and the politicians that supported FLVS and other prominent state online programs as represented by the Virtual Learning Leadership Alliance. Companies like Pearson/Connections and K12/Stride, that made the early investments to create a new type of online school, and Strongmind and SYS Education, which have continued the work of supporting online and hybrid schools. Others like Edison, Edmentum, and Imagine Learning, doing the same for online courses and tools that became common in mainstream schools. Studyforge and CANeLearn, supporting educators developing digital learning in Canada. Quality Matters, leading the effort to create online learning standards, along with others contributing to the National Standards for Quality Online Learning. All the leaders who invested their time in iNACOL, and now DLAC and the DLC.

And so many more--including the countless individual schools and district leaders who have led the way in providing opportunities for students. Our field is still a niche within K-12 education, but it's growing and becoming more influential, especially post-pandemic.
 
It’s still unclear what happens next in this story. But if the transformation happens in education, we will look back and realize that the signs were all around us.

H/T to Scott Ellis for the email exchange that sent me down the path of writing this!