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In the fifty years since the Laboratory for Human Development at Harvard was founded in 1949, the social sciences have transformed the way we humans now understand ourselves. Feminism and multiculturalism destroyed the idea that the workings of white males' minds could define what it is to be human. Technology radically altered, among other things, the way we transmit and consume information. And modern cognitive scientists proved what was previously considered an impossibility: that we can rigorously and scientifically study what goes on inside people's heads. And in all these areas, HGSE's Human Development and Psychology (HDP) area—an outgrowth of the 1949 laboratory—has distinguished itself as a leader.
Today we're on the verge of changes at least as revolutionary as those
of the past 50 years. Invoking HDP's track record for seeing what's ahead,
we've challenged several distinguished
faculty and alumni of HDP to look into the future. We asked them: "What
are the key issues and questions just around the corner in your fields?
What are the big dangers, the big promises?" This response was written by David Rose, Ed.D.'76, who is coexecutive director of CAST, the Center for Applied Special Technology, founded in 1984 in order to expand opportunities for students with disabilities through the innovative development and application of technology. I am, of course, no longer as smart as I was when I was a graduate student in Human Development. The natural degeneration of aging and the inevitable accumulation of actual experience has clouded my vision considerably. Luckily, along the way to abject senility, I stumbled into the digital world. There I found, quite by accident, that there are much more powerful tools for learning and teaching than any I had used in graduate school. These tools, essential for students who have disabilities in traditional technologies and helpful for all students, are now essential for me too. (Unfortunately for my stature as a parent, they work even better in the hands of my children.) The new technologies have brought me back to the core agenda that attracted me to Human Development: understanding learning. The new tools sharpen the issues that excited me then—understanding what learning really is, how diversified learning is, and how important it is to develop methods and materials for learning that are as articulated and flexible as the students utilizing them. The new tools have also taught me what I think my teachers were trying to teach me then—that the goals of education are not about the mastery of content (with the new tools, content is available everywhere, anytime) but about the mastery of learning. At commencement, we ought to generate students who are "expert learners." They should know their own strengths and weaknesses, know the kinds of media, adaptations, strategies, and external technologies they can use to overcome their weaknesses and extend their strengths, and the kinds of colleagues who are likely to complement their own patterns of learning and performance. They should be prepared for a changing world, not a static one, prepared for the world in which they will actually live. About the Article
HGSE News, Harvard Graduate School of Education
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