Many of us remember reading Orwell’s 1984 as part of a required high school English curriculum. There is a generation of students who read the dystopian novel prior to 1984 and wondered what life would be like when we reached that fateful year. There is also a generation of high school students who came to the novel after 1984 and see it in the context of a novel from the past, discussing a past-future already behind us (but maybe still relevant?). Then there is the generation that read 1984 in 1984. These teenagers came of age in the Reagon era and grew up juxtaposed between imminent nuclear annihilation and Michael Jackson. Education in the eighties was also a juxtaposition of weathered faculty, nearly retired from a long career educating American’s largest generation, and early career, idealistic baby-boomers new to teaching. The 1984 in 1984 generation received an education steeped in classic, tried and true, pedagogy (reading, writing, arithmetic) with a hefty dose of post-hippy-turned-educator-don’t-trust-The-Man critical thinking. The older teachers stressed routine, structure, and respect for tradition while the younger teachers often challenged the old pedagogical methods, such as standardized tests, and embraced critical reflection, self-directed learning and creative output. 

The current majority of university faculty came of age in this juxtaposed learning environment. It’s a small majority to be sure, and it is just on the cusp of being eclipsed by a much larger, younger generation of educators behind them. But as the final baby-boomer faculty fade into retirement, many of the senior level administration and department positions will be filled by this smallish group. At the turn of the millennium this group was already teaching or just finishing advanced degrees. This generation just missed the Age of Information – completing their dissertations and theses on typewriters and without the assistance of the internet- is it even possible to fathom how we used only the big green reader’s guide periodical literature? Most of this generation still leave 2 spaces after a period.  Gasp!

I bring all this up because the current pandemic has made it abundantly clear that pedagogy at all levels is long overdue for a reboot. It is overdue because the above mentioned faculty and administration have, for the past 10-15 years, clung to the past ways of educating and willfully refused to see that which was right in front of them. It has taken a pandemic and a global shift to remote, on-line learning to bring the need for a new pedagogy front and center. 

The biggest issue stems from the fact that our current faculty did not come of age with technology.  Similar to parenting, most people teach in the same way they were taught. Most of us educators had never taken an on-line course before we were asked to teach one (or several) in 2020. Though a more thorough analysis of how educators’ adapted their teaching to online platforms is most certainly being written, it can be generalized that  most teachers did their very best to force their traditional pedagogy to the new technology. Teachers at all levels attempted to lecture on-line while scrolling through endless slide decks, alone, staring into a great electronic void, waiting for some interaction, aka, signs of life to break their own monologue. Debates erupted, in on-line teaching forums, about requiring students’ cameras to be on and best practices for giving quizzes and tests on an on-line platform. Many faculty spend a significant amount of energy  online and in zoom meetings bemoaning the past two semesters and are fervently anticipating the “return to normal” by the pending vaccine.  

Vaccine or not, our current understanding and acceptance of education has been challenged by this pandemic and a “rush back to normal” would be a loss for the changes necessary to bring pedagogy into the 21st century.  It is my hope that the 1984-generation of teachers and administrators will take this moment to reflect and embrace the incredible educational technology currently available and be open to making the new teaching and learning leap into the future, which is already here.