Twenty years ago when we started The George Lucas Educational Foundation, we thought it would be 10 years before the general public would understand that the education system was in serious need of fixing. Today, in the wake of new energy in Washington D.C., new focus in the educational and philanthropic communities, and with the recent release of the film Waiting for 'Superman', the nation is getting a better picture of what is wrong with public education in America. And people are finally talking about it.
It's time to have a conversation about what's right in our schools, what's working. And as we debate what to do to fix the problems, let's remember that there are successes in education every day we can emulate. In districts of every stripe and demographic make-up, educators are dedicating themselves to providing their students with a high quality 21st century education and using new technologies to make it happen. They are showing kids how to find and analyze information and how to creatively deploy their analyses to solve problems. These educators are beginning to reinvent the learning process, guiding students through rigorous, real-life projects that integrate core academic topics and personalize the learning experience based on a child's strengths and weaknesses. They are building confidence and ambition in children, by supporting them emotionally and providing a safe, engaging environment to learn. Most importantly, these innovative educators are creating a next generation of citizens with academic knowledge and problem solving abilities that will serve our country for years to come.
Are there enough of these teachers and principals? No. Will the work of fixing our schools and reinventing the learning process be long and arduous? Of course. But as we move on from the debate and get busy building a better way, let's remember that the solutions -- and the people who are implementing them -- are not far away. In fact, they are nearer than you think. This is what they look like:
For more information about what works in education, visit Edutopia.org.
First we need to ensure there will even BE schools in the future. A growing segment of voters want to defund public education. Perhaps you should put some resources toward convincing voters to fund public education. After you save it from extinction, you can work on improving it.
still focused on memorization.
We should be teaching our young people
how to create really good questions...
then use those questions to create original
projects to explore their interests.
That is real-world learning.
I did a quick search and found the first part of your assertion ("the US spends more money than any other country in the world") to be somewhat disingenous. According to the sources noted, the US is:
>> #57 in public expenditure on education as a percent of GDP
(source: CIA World Factbook)
>> #38 in percent of total government expenditure on education
(source: United Nations Human Development Reports)
Finally, according to the US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statiistcs, the US spends less per elementary and secondary education student than do the countries of Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland.
Judging from the number of comments you have made to this article, you seem to fancy yourself an expert on the US education system. Perhaps you'd also like to share the basis of your expertise.
I would propose that the lure of charter schools is that people have the perception that by going to these schools their child is "part of something." The school has an identity. The kids there feel like they're part of something, part of a family.
I would propose that we rethink the way kids move through our school system.
I think kids at public schools get lost in a sea of people and never feel any identity as part of the school, and therefore have less stock in it or in themselves/fellow students.
I think that kids need smaller class sizes and they need to stick with the same group of kids, so that every time they go to a new class it's not like sitting there with a bunch of strangers.
Kids should move through classes as groups. It might limit choice in terms of the kinds of classes kids take, and teachers would have to focus more on individual teaching because there would be a variety of levels in one class...
but I think what's most important is to make kids feel like they're part of a family at school. They might not get on with all the kids in their group, but at least they would know them and be comfortable with them.
You are wrong!
Our society is much more multicultural now, but for many Americans that's uncomfortable. So we have to go a lot farther in the other direction in terms of size and a sense of being part of a group in order to accommodate for diversity and the chaos of modern life. Multiculturalism is too beneficial to our society to go backwards now, but it does seem to cause uneasiness in many Americans.
Chaos is difficult for kids. It's very disruptive to be growing up in chaos, when you're looking for things to believe in.
I will say one thing about the European system of Everything (politics, education, healthcare, etc.): they seem to use a calculus that more greatly factors in one interesting criterion: what works best for the greatest amount of people is certainly a reasonable course of action. I am not sure that one can say the same way about how we formulate policy in this country...at least not nowadays.
Our schools are like 19th century factories, with clocks, bells,... The system still cranks out dumbed down people, largely incapable of thinking, but we no longer have the kind of factories which used to employ them. Our high schools divide people into two basic groups - those who will continue onto college and all others for whom high school diploma is almost useless.
There is one huge factor in our publication education which is hardly ever addressed but it is critical - an economy which creates good paying jobs, with a feedback loop into the public school system that makes sure it trains the necessary people to perform those jobs. Most of that which is now learned in a community college used to be taught in high school. That is still so in most other countries. BTW, I am not saying that this is all that school ought to do, just one of the aim which it ought to do well.
The other main factor which is outside the school system is the culture which values education.
Let the other countries make the products for us. We'll them them how.
We'll be best in the world in what? And what exactly do you think we will be doing?
So where does that put us? We don't make anything anymore, because we're going to run the world instead. We're too good for factory work. We've closed down all our plants and factories, or moved them out of country to a place where 1) the labor is cheaper or 2) the workforce is better educated. We can't compete in math and science, even after throwing out everything else that makes them mean anything. We chose not to compete in genetics by standing in the way of stem cell research for a critical decade. We choose not to compete in the undeniable largest growth industry of the next 100 years, climate technology. So what exactly are we going to tell them how to do? Go down in flames in war-of-choice after war-of-choice? Melt down the global economy more effectively? Oh I know. How to run a functional government. That's gotta be it.
your example.
Teaching to the test is deadly.
But when kids grapple with projects of their own
creation, they learn essential 21st century skills
that will last them for a lifetime (not just for the
next exam).
Your analysis is like saying the reason that a business is failing is because their customers are awful. When teachers understand that they are only their to provide services to their customers than educations would be a lot better off than it is today.
Excellence in education is necessary for any country's long term success. As inequality continues to grow within the US, high quality public education becomes more and more critical. Let's open ourselves up to admitting that we aren't always the best and take some time to listen to other countries.
Your Star War movies literaly changed my life by inspiring me as a young man to learn about the cosmos and science.
If we had a president that would inspire our youth again about space and the technology that it brings we would not have such a hard time trying to get our young ones to be passionate about education.
Your movies depicted gigantic space ships and awesome cities in space or underneath the seas of some far away planet and all that could be waiting for our future offspring if we inspire them to be the next Great Explorers, like Christopher Columbus and Daniel Boone.
We can start by getting this president, or some other, to re-instate Constellation to pick-up where we left off with man-moon space exploration.
And our goal should not be just to 'go-to-the-moon' but to discover the next millenium science/technology that will drive our economy foward and improve the standards of living worldwide.
When I saw the opening scene of Star Wars with that Imperial Star Destroyer encompassing the whole screen and swallowing up that tiny space craft underneath, I was only 5-years-old and right then and there I knew one day mankind would inhabit space.
Welcome to Huffington Post, I hope you keep writing inspiring articles and create more movies that do the same.
It will certainly save us a lot of time compared to the current debate about what's WRONG with our schools. But it tends to obscure the fact that much IS wrong with our schools. At a time when computerization ought to be making it easier to educate our young, we are doing a poorer and poorer job.
Clearly, much of the problem is cultural. Just as clearly, the NEA and their local affiliates have been doing just as much as humanly possible to avoid discussion of (let alone efforts to mitigate) their part in this fiasco.