Education Innovation and Cognitive Artifacts
Must read from Mr. Brent Kaneft (our Head of School at Wilson Hall, where I am a teacher)…
So the strange paradox of innovation is that every innovation has the potential to be an existential threat to the physical, social, spiritual, and cognitive development of humans. The allure is the convenience (our brains are always looking to save energy!) and the potentiality innovation offers, but the human cost can be staggering, either immediately or slowly, like the impact of mold secretly growing behind an attractive wallpaper. To return to Tristan Harris’s point: machines are improving as humans downgrade in various ways. As professional educators, we have to ask whether innovation will prove detrimental to the fundamental qualities we want to develop in our students.