One Size Fits ALL?; Newsletter, Issue #30, 11/27/16
One Size Fits All?
Not Evolving to Provide Measurable Value to your Revenue Stream
November 27, 2016, By Tom McDonald
Without  students, when the reality is students = revenue, there is no legitimate ability to operate, or legitimate reason to exist.
Education exists to strategically advance ALL individual student, sustained, student success, performance improvement, outcomes. Without students there is no revenue and no purpose. Student success outcomes are judged by students and the funding public, after the students have graduated. Is their education relevant to employers, will they be hired in their field of study with a corresponding educationally relevant wage? Will they be able to pay off their student loans AND be financially able to live on their own? Will they directly and measurably contribute to society? Is there direct, measurable student value and is there direct measurable value to society?
This is educations new reality. These questions don’t always have a positive answer within traditional education.
What is the best way to honestly and ethically convince students to initially enroll and stay through graduation?
The answer is to honestly, ethically and measurably document similar students successes. This validates, for all students, that their investment in money and time will be worth the effort.
This measurable, documented, student success outcome, happens by empowering ALL students to be successful throughout their entire student experience.
Let’s look at one size fits all teaching, the common teaching approach in traditional education.
Does one size fits all work for everyone, when purchasing the following?
- A Vehicle? Does a black pick-up, with no radio and no air, work for everyone?
- A House? Â How about one bedroom and no garage for all?
- Clothes? What if the only size was small and the color was purple?
- Food? What if the grocery store only sold beef? What if the restaurant only had large salads?
- Jewelry? What if the only ring choice was onyx in size 6?
- Furniture? What if the only dresser was pine, with 2 drawers.
- Beds? What if the only bed was a single, with a lousy mattress?
- Phones? Flip phone, in orange.
- Drapes? Lacy, only in blue.
- Carpet? Berber, only in white.
Henry Ford, when he offered the Model T, offered only one color, black. At the time that worked, because no-one knew about individualized choice, but it doesn’t work any more, because we have evolved. Interestingly enough, the Model T, ALSO, doesn’t currently work, as a primary mode of  transportation, for individuals and society. Imagine driving a Model T in heavy, urban, highway traffic? This choice would be a threat to everyone’s safety, including the driver’s.
People want choice, they want what they engage to be individualized and they want it to strategically work for them.
Traditional educations beginning was, 20th Century, factory based, one size fits all teaching and back then, it worked nicely. Like black, as the only original color choice for a car, one size fits all teaching doesn’t currently work for THE CUSTOMER, the student. Imagine if all car manufacturers tried to aggressively convince their customers that the color black was best for them, in a world that provided personal choice otherwise? In a free market, non monopoly scenario, ONE manufacturer would offer color choice and they would satisfy each customer’s wants.
Traditional education has not evolved with the times. Traditional education continues to offer Model T’s with black as the only choice of color and continues to sidestep the issue that students and the funding public want/need something other than a black Model T.
To compound the problem, black can still be very functional on a car. One size fits all teaching, is not strategically functional. It does not empower ALL students to be successful. But traditional education continues to sidestep and nay say  education innovation, which is proven to provide relevant student success outcomes to ALL of their students.
The direct consequences, of the incumbent one size fits all teaching status quo, to students, are obvious; education gaps, drop-outs, students graduating with no relevant skills. The direct consequences to society are not so obvious; money spent to deliver the following to students who drop out (who are failed by a flawed system of one size fits all teaching): underemployment, unemployment, welfare, crime, violence, incarceration, drug sales, drug use and drug intervention. But traditional education continues to ignore individually empowering ALL their students, by habitually embracing a 20th century, flawed, one size fits all teaching methodology (Not being able to see the forest from the trees).
Imagine if medicine did not change from 20th century practices? What would have happened to IBM if they didn’t change and evolve to provide obvious value to their customers? What if “ice boxes” remained the norm and air conditioning was available, but not made available to the public?
Truly personalized learning IS available, regardless of what you hear otherwise. Traditional education is aggressively choosing to maintain a flawed, one size fits all teaching methodology, nay saying individualized learning, ALL to the direct detriment of strategically advancing student success and empowering ALL students to be successful. Why? Because one size fits all teaching works for them and “change is hard”. WOW! In any other scenario, an entity unwilling to change, consistent with their mission and vision, would soon be forced to close, buy a competing entity, that measurably provides more value to their customers, who also happen to be their revenue source.
Innovative educators are now realizing that documented, measured, advanced, student success outcomes are now directly connected to student revenues. Would it be a stretch to call this sustained, job relevance/security?
The funding public is unwilling to perpetuate a flawed methodology, which is not aligned with advancing student success outcomes and directly contributes to very serious/expensive problems within society.
Traditional education MUST change to embrace their defined strategic, mission and vision of empowering ALL their students to be successful and totally and completely change paradigms from one size fits all teaching, to individualized, adaptive, learning, OR, traditional education, by choice, will die a slow death to those innovative educators that follow the proven, best practices research that measurably advances student success, performance improvement outcomes.
Its inevitable, due to documented, mediocre, student success results, that one size fits all teaching will not continue to be funded by the public and will be totally and completely replaced by educationally innovative methodologies that advance sustained, student success, performance improvement outcomes, for ALL students.
Everyone, including traditional educators, expect choice in their purchases, but traditional education expects to preserve a flawed methodology that works for them, but doesn’t work for their students, or the funding public.
What’s wrong with this picture?
For those of you that disagree, please review the research that validates this position. If after reviewing the research, you still disagree, provide me credible research validating YOUR current position.
Let me know if you agree that one size fits all is no longer an option in education and traditional education must IMMEDIATELY evolve to meet the needs of their students and the funding public. Or, validate to me, the only other option, by letting me know that you just don’t care if students are empowered to be successful.
Reference:
The “Average Student” is a Lie
Harvard University:
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