Talk given at St John's College, Oxford, 30 April 2013

1. “Schools and universities
will not exist in 50
years”. Discuss
Colin Harrison
University of Nottingham
School of Education/Learning Sciences Research Institute
colin.harrison@nottingham.ac.uk

2. Google the phrase: “… will not exist in 50 years”

3. Google the phrase: “… will not exist in 50 years”
– The USA
– Europe
– Israel
– The Church

4. Google: “… will not exist in 50 years”
– The USA
– Europe
– Israel
– The Church
Roger Schank: “Fifty years from now, school as we
know it will have atrophied from lack of interest.”

5. Google: “… will not exist in 50 years”
Roger Schank: “Fifty years from now, school as we
know it will have atrophied from lack of interest.”
David Gelernter: “95 percent of the world’s
universities will be dead in fifty years.”

6. Roger Schank: ““Fifty years from now, school as we know it
will have atrophied from lack of interest. Education in such a
society will be a matter of what virtual (and later real) worlds
you have entered and how much you have learned to do in
those worlds.”
- How we teach is fundamentally wrong
- Most maths is unimportant
- History is mostly fiction, and in any event it’s irrelevant
- Cultural identity is ‘an interesting issue’, but it shouldn’t be
taught through literature
- Science is important, but in school we teach children only
to hate science….

7. Roger Schank: ““Fifty years from now, school as we know it will
have atrophied from lack of interest. Education in such a
society will be a matter of what virtual (and later real) worlds
you have entered and how much you have learned to do in
those worlds.”
- How we teach is fundamentally wrong
- Most maths is unimportant
- History is mostly fiction, and in any event it’s irrelevant
- Cultural identity is ‘an interesting issue’, but it shouldn’t be
taught through literature
- Science is important, but in school we teach children only to
hate science….
- “… and the same arguments apply to college of course.”
- “The fact is that college is pretty much wasted on 18-year-
old students”

8. What should we be doing instead?
Teaching planning
Teaching communication
Teaching the skills of diagnosis
Teaching judgment
Teaching prediction
Teaching experimentation

9. What should universities be doing instead?
…in 50 years
– “…there will still be Harvard”
– Virtual universities will replace most universities
– ‘Just in time learning’
– Most students will start college earlier than 18
– Degrees and certificates will be less important
– Classes will be available to everyone

10. What will happen to the authority of
knowledge?
• Caveat homo doctrinae studiosus

11. What will happen to the authority of
knowledge?
• Caveat homo doctrinae studiosus
• Scientific Articles Accepted (Personal
Checks, Too)
• Here’s a link to 187 pay-for-publication open-
access journals:
http://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/

13. “Schools and universities
will not exist in 50
years”. Discuss
Colin Harrison
University of Nottingham
School of Education/Learning Sciences Research Institute
colin.harrison@nottingham.ac.uk