The Future of Practical Learning by Hunter

The Future of Practical Learning by Hunter - February 2018 Scholarship Essay

It is my belief that humans have only begun to scratch the surface of our potential regarding technology. We have reached a point in which technology has been increasing on an exponential level to which life was vastly different even twenty years ago. Because of this boom, it is only natural that all aspects of life would increase as well, including our education.

It used to be that students would learn from textbooks and libraries in their school and local community and that was the extent of their searching capabilities. Now, that is a grain of sand in the beach in which our resources consist of. Technology has helped not just students, but the world become more connected with our fellow humans and our understanding of the world itself. From the various cultures around the world, the many pseudo-sciences used throughout varying civilizations, to the foods native to just a few islands, technology has all but created a theoretically perfect web of information.

As it is, education is just now starting to convert to a more technology-oriented learning system, slowly replacing textbooks with online resources and taking practical lessons and instead using a simulation on a website. That isn’t saying that textbooks and practical lessons are worse than their technological counterparts, just that they are more time consuming usually. Personally, any way to fit more lessons into less time would be amazing as my school district, and state I believe, start school a whole month behind many other states, therefore making AP testing more stressful for we have less time to prepare. So, when pondering about what could be done to improve this a step further for future generations, I think of virtual reality.

Virtual reality is not new, conceptually being born in the 1900’s. But the high tech realistic virtual reality is just on the horizon, being tested around and constantly improved as the days go by. Recently it’s been used as the primary theme to a new movie and has been implemented as a fairly popular game platform by semi-famous streamers. However, it is also my belief that it is potentially the future to our education.

Imagine in the future, where virtual reality may not be used in every aspect of life, but in the more dangerous, high risk environments. It would allow the brightest minds of the generation to preform realistic simulations of mixing highly volatile chemicals without the risk of blowing off a hand. To be able to have surgeon hopefuls practice an open-heart surgery without wasting materials or maybe soon to be dentists practice a root canal without needing to risk the teeth of real people on a first attempt gone wrong.

These are of course scenarios in which only those pursuing majors would see any benefit but that isn’t to say it can’t be used in high school. What if instead of showing a documentary about life of soldiers during WW2, they were put into a simulation of how it was like to be the tip of the spear against the German war machine. To experience on at least a basic level of how the conditions were. Or perhaps to be put into an actor’s shoes during a Shakespearean play and feel the atmosphere of the crowd and the intense focus that one would feel in being apart of such a dramatic literature come to life. They would be life changing experiences and I feel as though they would teach a student in such a unique way, it simply could not be replicated by a mere passage in a textbook or scene from a documentary.

Technology has become our future whether we like it or not, so why shouldn’t we take advantage of this gift and use it to better the successors of the world. And with the progress we have made in the past 20 years alone, what’s to say my vision will not come to fruition by 2038? Its only another 20 years after all.