Secretary's Column
By Dr. Rick Melmer
Department of Education

The water cooler is gone

As I near the half-century mark, I am constantly reminded about how our world has changed. I have become very interested in books that illustrate the changes in our society and how those changes have occurred. “The Tipping Point” was thought provoking, and “Good to Great” helped me see the key steps in leadership as we deal with a changing world.

The latest book that has helped me understand how our world has changed is “The Long Tail.” This book does an incredible job of walking the reader through the past 50 years and telling a story about the changes that have occurred and impact us each day.

Many of us remember the days when you were able to get only three channels on your TV sets. As a result, we all watched the same shows. If you were a news buff, Walter Cronkite was likely your man. Shows such as “The Dick Van Dyke Show” or “All in the Family” were popular choices for viewers. You probably also remember one or two radio stations that were popular in your community. One newspaper, the local paper, was read by a majority of the adult public.

As a result of this limited scope of choices, we were a very homogenous society. We went to work and stood by the water cooler to discuss the same things. We watched the same shows, listened to the same music, and read the same news each day. The bad news was that we didn’t have much choice with our entertainment dollars. The good news was that we had much in common with one another and could find consistency in our thinking and our actions.

Fast forward to today. Do we have greater access to entertainment options? We all know the answer is a resounding “yes”! Many of us now have well over 60 channels to choose from on TV, unlimited radio channels – especially if you have purchased satellite radio for your home or auto – and we can read any newspaper we want online to get current news and information. As a result, when we gather at the water cooler, we have less in common with one another. We watch different TV shows, listen to different music, and read different publications. As the author indicates, we have become a “nation of niches” rather than a nation of one thought and mind.

My analysis is not a criticism. In fact, I think it’s refreshing that all of us can pursue our interests as we see fit. However, the impact of these societal changes has started to creep into our schools. Will a uniform curriculum be the answer for the students of tomorrow? When a student has choices from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m., why wouldn’t that student insist on choices during the school day? We will see a push for a personalized high school curriculum. Count on it.

In addition, the classroom teachers of tomorrow will wonder why we are paying different people with different responsibilities and demands the same amount of money on a salary schedule. Differential pay is just around the corner. Our future teachers will expect it.

On many occasions, I have said that the issues in society do not stop at the schoolhouse door. The same is true today. Our individualized society will morph into a school system that responds to the individual needs of each student. It is beginning to happen in many of our educational systems, and the customers love it.