Some may wonder whether or not schools and teachers will be necessary to educate children in the future. With technology becoming extremely advanced and millennials growing up in a world so immersed in it, society may be shifting towards self-education. Self-education is where students receive an education at home with the help of technology and will no longer attend schools in physical buildings. Students would enroll in online school in order to receive an education from home. If self-education becomes a common way of learning, it could have positive and negative effects on both students and teachers.

Students who choose to self-educate with online school instead of attending public or private school can be met with certain advantages and obstacles. Students in online school are able to learn at their own pace. In a school environment, teachers work at one pace, and all students must keep up. This can lead to students not fully understanding the topic of study and can lead to students struggling. A blogger named Derek Oldfield, stated, “Since I began using Khan Academy […] I’ve really embraced this concept that one pace does not fit all”. Khan Academy is an online teaching site that helps students with different topics taught in schools such as math, English, and science (Khan Academy). The book, The One World School House, by Sal Khan, the creator of Khan Academy, discusses how most teachers teach with a “one pace fits all” policy and how it is difficult to manage several students who learn at different paces (Oldfield, Derek). Although online schooling can benefit students, it can also create challenges. The social component of traditional education in school such as working with peers on group projects, study groups and lunch periods are all very important parts of the learning experience. When students are enrolled in online school they miss out on many opportunities to become socially active and make new friends. Self-education can be beneficial to some students, but it can also cause kids to feel socially isolated.

If self-education becomes more common, teachers would mostly suffer as the demand for their employment would not be as high. If most students enroll in online school, many teachers would become unemployed. With the possibility of fewer students in a traditional school system, schools would not have a need for a great number of teachers. In contrast, having fewer kids in public or private schools would allow teachers to create a closer relationship with their students. Teachers would be able to instruct at a slower pace because they would be catering to fewer students, thus enhancing the learning experience. The irony of this situation is that if more students take online classes, there will be fewer students remaining in the traditional classroom. This will create a smaller, more intimate learning environment for those who remain in school. The reason why so many students left school would end up benefiting those left behind.

Self-education has advantages and disadvantages when it comes to students and teachers. Students who enroll in online school would be able to learn at a pace that works best for them, but they would miss on the social aspect of traditional schooling. Teachers would benefit because they would be able to create a relationship with the few students that remain, but negatively, many would lose their jobs due to a decreased number of enrolled students. Choosing between self-education and traditional schooling is a personal decision. Either can be beneficial or detrimental to students and their educators.

Works Cited

Khan Academy. 2019, Accessed 18 Jan. 2019.

Oldfield, Derek. "One Pace Does NOT Fit All." Learners Teaching Learners: Derek Oldfield, edublogs, 1 Oct. 2013. Accessed 11 Jan. 2019.