In case you missed it, teachers, science journalist Joel Garreau offers Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human a description of an embrionic post-human-as-we-know-us-now paradigm created by advanced technologies already existing in one form or another.
Reviewer Curtis Edmonds says that the best and most intriguing parts of RADICAL EVOLUTION are the parts about laboratories and the people who work in them, and the different applications that the new genetic and nanotechnology scientists are coming up with. The research — which is either promising or horrifying, depending on your point of view of any given issue — is compelling and important, and could change our world forever.
This paradigm leaves unanswered profound questions about the adequacy of schools, culture, values, and judgments to live with advanced technologies that evolve faster than most people know, let alone know how to handle.
Garreau speculates that three groups of people will exist soon: those who Enhance themselves (they have the money and interest to do so), the Naturals (those who have the money, but decide not to enhance themselves), and The Rest (those who do not have the money or resources to enhance themselves). He suggests that soon will become more apparent in the next 5 to 10 years.
He describes life for our students as he sees it before most of them leave high school.
This question seems so simplistic by comparison, but I’ll ask it anyway. How might a Tablet PC and other available advanced technologies in schools prepare our students for this revolution Garreau says is underway.
