HUMBOLDT Nearly 40 years ago, society had a name for wireless phones, for small screens you could fit in your pocket and provide hours of music, television or films, or that robotic assistant you could order with your voice.
The term we had for all this was science fiction, David Von Drehle said Sunday.
Von Drehle, a staff columnist for the Washington and former editor for Time Magazine, delivered the keynote address at Sundays Humboldt Virtual School graduation ceremony.
The message was a special one for Von Drehle, who lives in the Kansas City area. His daughter, Ella, was one of the virtual schools graduates.
The voyage from my science fiction to your everyday reality has been one of the most dramatic changes in the entire history of humankind, Von Drehle said. Youre living proof.
He elaborated.
Forty years ago, we had a very small-minded idea about students and schools, Von Drehle said. We believed school had to begin at a particular time in the morning each day. It had to contain a certain number of classes in a certain order, and they all lasted the same amount of time. And youd be signaled to go from one to the next by a bell or a chime or a buzzer.
It was the job of every student to fit herself or himself into that model and somehow make it work, he said.
But it didnt work for many young people, Von Drehle said. Too often, those students wound up dropping out of school altogether.
Thankfully, were beginning to appreciate not everybody learns exactly the same way, Von Drehle said.
THE HUMBOLDT Virtual School allowed more than 80 students to earn their diplomas this year outside the traditional setting, via online courses. Since the Humboldt programs inception in 2012, more than 400 such students have earned their diplomas.
Von Drehle lauded the efforts of program director Jodi Siebenmorgen, who has been at the helm of the virtual school since its inception.
Jodi realized the changes in technology could provide an answer for students and families from all across the state, Von Drehle said. With the support of the Humboldt school district, she built one of the largest virtual schools in the state and one of the best.
He noted the failure to finish high school is one of the leading indicators of a lifetime of poverty.
You realize what has happened is 400 lives have been transformed to have hopeful futures, Von Drehle said. These diplomas you collect today can be life-changing.
I believe technology is going to keep on changing, he said. Forty years from now, you will be marveling, just like me, at an amazing reality that today seems like science fiction.
But technology, he stressed, is only a tool.
People can put tools to good use or bad, Von Drehle said. The same tools allowing us to save more lives and feed more people and connect with more friends around the world can also be used to bully school kids or to recruit terrorists or steal identities.
