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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

The Tomato Harvester, the Smart Gun, and The Age-Graded School: Reframing the Problem | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Tomato Harvester, the Smart Gun, and The Age-Graded School: Reframing the Problem | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

The Tomato Harvester, the Smart Gun, and The Age-Graded School: Reframing the Problem

Machines picking thick-rind tomatoes, a gun that won’t fire in the hands of someone who doesn’t own it, and schools where six year-olds work with eight year-olds, where 14 and 16 year-olds, regardless of grade, engage in academic lessons–all are instances where historic problems have been reframed in creative ways.
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Take the tomato harvester. Mechanizing agricultural work reduces labor costs and produces larger profit margins. But there was a problem with machines picking tomatoes. Early versions of the harvester would crush too many of the tomatoes as they scooped up the entire plant, shook the tomatoes free of