Passage 1 

The proliferation of information accessible from computers and mobile phones open new worlds and opportunity to young and old alike. But the vast information and the expectation that we can now tackle tough questions and find solutions with just a few clicks or taps also a troubling trend for business. 

The Pew Internet and American Life Project issued a report analyzing how teens approach research and academic work in a digital world. The surveys’ respondents agreed almost unanimously that the internet provides students’ limitless access to information, 77% of teachers Pew interviewed believed that digital technologies had a “mostly positive” impact on how their students conducted research. 

Yet almost the same ratio of teachers agreed with the suggestion that internet search engines condition students to assume that information is always quickly and easily available. Google and Wikipedia have become the authoritative resources of choice; only 16% of teachers in the Pew survey believed their student would seek the assistance of a librarian. Overall the survey’ s 50 questions reveal a trend that is hardly surprising: students today are far more media and technologically- savvy than ever before, but in some ways are less literate and more distracted than those of prior generations. 

Meanwhile, Common Sense Media of San Francisco released a similar study on how the digital age has affected students’ ability to learn. According to 71% of the teachers surveyed, the wide availability of media— including TV shows, video games, texting and social media —has had a significantly negative impact on students’ attention spans. 

By a wide margin, teachers also agree that students’ consumption of today’ s digital media has harmed their ability to communicate face-to-face and caused their writing skills to suffer. Almost half of the teachers also believe the quality of their students’ homework has declined due to their reliance on new media. 

Both studies raise a prickly question: is anyone responsible for changing how students learn and solve problem? Or is it up to students to adjust and modify how they learn in order to meet the needs of today’ s business? 

Business certainly should take an active role in their countries’ education systems to ensure that their future employees can compete in a more digital, round-the-clock and globalised world. And just as how these new technologies have blurred the lines between home and work due to the ability to check email and update Twitter feeds at a moment’ s notice, students are already living within the fuzzy boundaries between the classroom, their home and social lives. 

Are students really “struggling?” The more accurate term would be “coping” . The world in which many children and teens live today is an exponentially larger and more complicated one than just 20 years ago. 

Therefore, insisting that students adjust their habits to fit the norms of classrooms better suited for a 19th century style of learning is akin to shoving toothpaste back in the tube. The technologies that surround us will only become quicker, more invasive and demand that workers become even more productive. 

To that end, Cathy Davidson, a professor of humanities at Duke University, North Carolina, and co-funder of the charity HASTAC, rightly places the onus on teachers. It is the job of teachers to assist students to “learn how to be successful adults in their future” , she wrote in a recent article on HASTAC’ s blog. “It is not our job to preserve for them some nostalgic vision of the future that is clearly past. ” 

Just as the office has long since eliminated carbon paper, typewrites and clunky desktop computers, schools have to move forward and find a way to educate children in today’ s environment—minus the calculator, protractor and other leaning tools of days long gone. 

Nevertheless, business must have a role in an era where schools are beset by budget cuts and deteriorating infrastructure. Teachers and administrators, therefore, must welcome them in the classroom and together find ways to groom a labor force that will face new challenges in the coming decades. Education theory will never go away, yet therefore must evolve; business can be an active partner by articulating its needs and providing the resources so that teachers can succeed. Our kids, and economy, both depend on such cooperation.