From Scarcity to Abundance in the field of Education

Diana Laufenberg applies the concept of the shift from an age of scarcity to an age of abundance to the field of education. In the old days, she says, there was information scarcity so that schools and libraries became repositories of information. People had to go to schools and libraries in order to gain access to this scarce information. Today there is an abundance of information. Laufenberg believes that the challenge today is not gaining access to scarce information, but learning how to sift through the abundance of information and apply it. The role of schools and libraries is being transformed from being repositories of information to being laboratories for learning how to collaborate and work with the abundance of information that is available.

An important part of this transformation, says Laufenberg, is for students to learn how to fail. Failure must no longer be terminal, nor should a negative stigma be attached to it. Students must learn how to fail their way to success; they must learn how to learn from their failure.

The accent now must not be on having memorized the "right" answer, but on how to learn from your failures in your efforts to find information and apply it in a practical way. The question must not just be "Where do I find information?" but -- above all -- "What can I do with the information after I have found it?"