This is the second in a three-part series on the need for education reform in the United States. The first installment, "Doubling-Down on Dumb: The GOP War on Being Smart," explored the emerging political discourse criticizing public education and being well-educated, and how the toxic environment it creates makes real reform even more problematic. This installment argues in favor of a paradigm shift in primary and secondary education.
In early October 2011, I wrote "Three Innovative Ideas, Which Could Help the Economy,... but No One's Talking About Them," In that blog entry I argued that comprehensive education reform was one "innovative idea" that could help transform the domestic economy. Specifically, I suggested that:
Reforming the U.S. public education system to make it less like a factory processing future workers, and focusing instead on creating a nation of thinkers, might seem counterintuitive to matching up high school and college grads with scarcely available jobs. And, indeed, this kind of "trade school approach" to recasting secondary and post-secondary education is something recently suggested by The Economist's Matthew Bishop, author of "The great mismatch," Sept. 10, 2011.
However counter-intuitive this notion may appear, fostering a nation of creative thinkers will serve the U.S. well in an increasingly global and technological economy. After all, one of the most successful and profitable companies in the world (high-tech or otherwise) is Apple. Until August 25, 2011, Apple was led by CEO Steve Jobs, who stepped down (for the second time) for health reasons. Jobs was one of the most creative thinkers of the past 50 years and was not trained by the American university system for such greatness. He was a creative thinker, not the toiler of a particular trade conferred upon him by some professional degree.
Academic institutions, on the other hand, tend to look at twenty-five, 50, and 100-year increments. The things they create are intended to have real permanence. Even when they build new buildings, the tendency is to have them designed and constructed as if to appear like they've always been there. We need to have this kind of long-term approach to reforming America's primary and secondary education systems.
Unfortunately, "new ideas" about fixing our public education system have a decidedly short-term nature. They are often focused on addressing a particular problem, making these proposed solutions more reactionary and less intentional; less well-focused. Much in the way of education reform these days is predicated on the need for cost-cutting and/or cost controls, with little to no regard for the potential negative consequences of such resource reductions. Additionally, some "reforms" are intended to allow (or force) school districts to purge the faculty, by creating metrics for success focused not on whether, what, and how students are learning but, instead, on evaluating teachers, school administrators, and school districts.
I have no problem with the concept of ongoing teacher evaluations. In fact, it's a pretty good practice. However, it seems to be putting the cart before the horse to do teacher evaluations in an environment where we may not be expecting the right kind of teaching out of them; defining and measuring "student achievement" in ways that say nothing about whether actual learning is taking place.
So then, what's the right approach to education reform? The right approach is not to assume that we already have the answer; that the current system is fine but just needs to be tweaked. The right approach is to start over, with two questions:
What capabilities, capacities, and knowledge do we want all children to have by the time they graduate from high school; and
what is the best way for students to acquire those things (as opposed to what's the best or, as is most-often the case, the easiest way for the school system to teach and measure them)?
In other words, the focus needs to be changed dramatically--a true paradigm shift--from how the system teaches to what and how students learn.
Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognized expert in human creativity. He has also become highly regarded for his views on education systems and educational reform. Robinson believes--and I wholeheartedly concur--that the public education system in the United States needs to be fundamentally reformed. Specifically, the American public education system has gotten off track, with an increasing emphasis on rote learning, and standardized testing as the metric by which we judge how good a job the system is doing in educating its students. The No Child Left Behind Act may mark the pinnacle of this kind of myopic thinking about education.
An RSAnimate video "Changing Education Paradigms," graphically presents some of Robinson's thinking on the subject. I strongly recommend anyone interested in education reform take the eleven minutes and 41 seconds it takes to watch this video. However, at the risk of preempting anyone keen on watching "Changing Education Paradigms" or the entirety of Robinson's speech to the Royal Society of Arts on which that video is based (or, for that matter, Robinson's 2006 TED Talk) from doing so, I will endeavor to summarize Robinson's proposition for changing our education paradigm.
The public education system in the United States, like all education systems throughout the world, is career-oriented, modeled on the expectations of post-secondary institutions or employers seeking employees with particular skill-sets. K-12 programs have become a process through which those who can afford it get to access colleges and universities; the end goal of matriculation at a college or university is the conferral of a diploma, which presumably gives the recipient entree into a particular job or career field (more on this in the third part of this series). Robinson states "The whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance." This system of education has changed little since public education systems were first created in the 19th Century, in response to the emerging needs of Industrialism in developing nations.
What, one might ask, is the problem with an educational system predicated on the belief that its graduates should be fit for future employment? There are at least two problems with this narrow basis for an entire educational framework. First, a child entering Kindergarten in the fall of 2012, assuming they will be career-ready with a four-year bachelor's degree, will enter the workforce in 2029. Is there anyone who presumes to know what the global economy will require of its workforce just five years from now (in 2017), much less what will be needed in 2029? Viewed in this context, this predicate for our entire primary and secondary public education system seems not only antiquated but wholly absurd.
The second problem with this system is that the path to getting to this end goal works great for some students; only marginally well for others; and yet not at all for those with less academic-oriented interests and capabilities. The subject areas in which some students have tremendous talent, remarkable aptitude, and keen interest--the fine arts, for example--become increasingly marginalized in secondary schools in favor of those subjects that are viewed as more pragmatic; more "job worthy."
Ironically, studies have shown that students engaged in a well-rounded K-12 educational system, one that includes consistent exposure to the arts (music, fine art, drama, and dance) and some level of daily physical activity throughout the process, end up being more creative and innovative; they perform better in school; and they are more adept at problem-solving and critical thinking. Yet these are the areas in which most school districts trim their budgets the earliest and the deepest, making for a long, uninspiring school day in which teachers and parents lament that students seem to be tuning out in record numbers. Is it any wonder why?
In a longitudinal study on divergent thinking (which Robinson sees as an "essential capacity" for creativity) 98% of Kindergarten children tested at the "genius" level, suggesting that every child has the capacity for divergent thinking. However, when divergent thinking tests were repeated with the same children five years later, and five years after that, the percentage of students performing at the "genius" level dropped precipitously each time, to the point where very few still had the capacity to think divergently ten years after the initial testing. Land, George and Beth Jarman, Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future--Today (Leadership 2000, Inc. 1998).
Robinson has suggested that the reason why the students' capacity for divergent thinking diminishes as they get older is not a function of their age but the fact that "it's been pretty much taught out of them. They've spent ten years at school, being taught there's only one answer." There's little if any reward for divergent thinking in such a narrowly focused educational environment.
Microsoft; Apple; Amazon; Google; Facebook; Twitter; Research in Motion; E Ink Corporation; and Etak: You're likely very familiar with the first seven of these companies. E Ink Corporation, a spin-off from MIT's Media Lab, developed the technology that makes the Kindle, and competing Sony Reader, work. Etak developed the first operational GPS system adapted for automotive use; a market segment now dominated by the likes of Garmin and Tom-Tom.
What each of these companies has in common with each other, as well as with thousands of others, is that they all started out small, based on an idea generated by one or a few people with the talent, inclination, and motivation to innovate. Just imagine what 2012 would be like now if 50 years ago, someone decided to completely remake the primary and secondary public education system in America, shifting its focus away from merely producing "college-ready high school graduates," and toward fostering young adults with the abilities to create, innovate, and think critically. Rather than enjoying the episodic fruits of one-in-a-million creators and entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos, the U.S. would be the undisputed technological leader in the world economy. Imagine the technological innovations we'd be enjoying today, and that the rest of the world would be buying from the U.S.
Let's not wait another 50 years to reform the primary and secondary education systems in this country, because we can't afford not to. Let's start now.
Follow Peter Smirniotopoulos on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@PSmirn
Eric Smith: Building on the Values of No Child Left Behind
Regaining our youth's ability to create, innovate, and think critically is the motherlode.
A plan that doesn't cost billions, and available to all regardless of location, language, race, and educational or economic level. Our target is preschoolers where a positive change in learning behavior can be attained quickly.
A web-site was created focusing on life skills and the intellectual, social, and physical skills needed for kindergarten readiness. Research led us to neuroscience, language plasticity, brain circuits, music, poetry, genetics, and other nation's early childhood programs. A site providing adults the resources to prepare children for a successful school experience. With the backing of community and business leaders, the media, etc. we can build a different paradigm. Preschoolers who embrace learning can become caring people, critical thinkers, and wise decision makers. Check out www.ifnotyouwho.org - subscription based to pay the bills and mobile access for our society - contact us for non-subscription access. Sharing the plan with adults who connect with the 21+ million children under the age of 6 is the intent. The website is just the beginning....
Thanks for the link. I would appreciate having non-subscription access but will also pass the link on to my wife.
We are in a pilot program with a group in Muncie, Indiana - without internet access. A booklet of the activities was compiled for them to use. I mention so you know how "flexible" we are.
If Not You, Who?'s intent is to reach all adults that have contact with preschoolers and devise various strategies of using the website for individual day care centers, early childhood centers, Head Start, families, etc. For example, if the family and daycare center are accessing the INYW? website, the monthly books and fingerplay are being shared at daycare and home.
Call it "reform" or "dream" but with the website and mobile application, a whole community (nation??!!) is on the same page of getting kids ready for school. The public library can share these books, the local paper can print the finger play or proverb of the month for all to learn. Social media followers can embrace YouTube reciting these finger plays.
The focus of INYW? is encouraging a child to be creative, think, explore, move, listen, speak, question - not a workbook or video based program. Using everyday situations and play based activities, a child will be prepared to begin school.
This will require the kind of paradigm shift that Peter Smirniotopoulos recommends. His reference to Robinson really makes the issue clear. We need elementary school teachers who are capable of creativity, innovation, and critical thinking.
But this does not mean that basic skills are not important. How many students reach high school unable to do computations with fractions? If a student is unable to work with fractions, how can the student do algebra? How can a student read a ruler? Elementary school teachers are responsible for a generation that is unable to make basic arithmetic calculations without a calculator. Our students are unable to do higher level math and science because they are unable to do basic arithmetic.
I disagree with you that elementary teachers are solely responsible for our sour educational state. I see EVERY SINGLE DAY parents who are entirely against the schools and teachers. They are pinning themselves as our enemies. For example - a boy was suspended last week from my school for hitting and swearing at a teacher. He was seen at Taco Bell 15 minutes later with his mom laughing and smiling. What is that parent teaching their child?? That it is okay to screw around and be disrespectful in school and that he will be rewarded for it.
If we want to fix our schools we needs to get parents on our side teaching responsibility, respect, and work ethic. Until then it really wont matter what other "reforms" take place.
The first is to suggest that a potential solution lies within Edwin O. Wilson's concept of "consilience." In educational terms, consilience would involve a consistent leveraging of all types of learning against each other until such time as students learn to think that way. Imagine, for example, a math class that required a written report on Blaise Pascal, or an Art History class that delved into the mathematics of perspective. By targeting what I will refer to as "consilient learning," we can continually exercise creative thought in ways that rote learning can never do.
My second comment is about the inherent cart-and-horse problem in your arguments which, though only subtly present, is very real: how does one revise education in any way without first revising how educators themselves are educated? It may be necessary to begin top down rather than bottom up; i.e., we may need to revise the way we create teachers and then let those new-gen teachers teach the rest of us how to revise education.
As for the chicken-and-egg problem to which you allude, I'm inclined to invoke architect Robert Venturi's concept of "both/and." Having teachers trained to teach in an new educational paradigm will lead to a lot of frustrations for them if the schools and systems within which they work don't support and reinforce their efforts.
On point two, I agree with the both/and approach; I clearly misspoke in suggesting a top-down vs. bottom-up methodic; we need both, as you suggest.
I was excited to read your article but found it lacked practical advice.
If we really want to start changing the education system, we lists with links, editable README.md files, an IRC room… Better, a project on GitHub that the community can collaborate on, something along those lines.
If you provide tools alongside your articles to let the community help you, we will.
Cheers.
What did Thomas Jefferson consider to be happiness? Theodore Roosevelt? To view the second segment of our series on the "pursuit of happiness", click on the link:
Life among the Ordinary
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/
"According to Jefferson, the essence of the pursuit of happiness commenced with the removal of all forms of arbitrary, artificial or hereditary distinctions, influences or preconceived ideas. The goal was to attain full, unencumbered intellectual and religious freedom of the mind, unconstrained by previous efforts to set authoritative delineation using lenses and filters. Absent these external influences and thus empowered, the mind would exist in a completely and intellectually free state: to master its environment and attain its natural potentialities. Central was the belief in the improvability of the human mind and the limitless progress of human knowledge."
As a nation we have lazily become very incremental about everything, including innovation. Small steps are all we’re willing to even consider.
I’m following a guy in Austin, TX – Andrew West. He has the right idea: SOLVE problems with economically-viable solutions and the resulting demand will create jobs.
There is an Intro here: http://www.Solutioneur.com
He's also working on healthcare.
Solve something. THAT will make a difference.
Sooner or later somebody has to say it “Americans have become fat and lazy. We should lead the World by solving problems. Regarding job-creation, it will never come from government programs and it never has.
As a nation we have lazily become very incremental about everything, including innovation. Small steps are all we’re willing to even consider.
I’m following a guy in Austin, TX – Andrew West. He has the right idea: SOLVE problems with economically-viable solutions and the resulting demand will create jobs. He has tackled the construction industry by enabling high-rise apts/condos for 50% less and in half the time. That’s going to be disruptive. He also has solutions for education and agriculture.
There is an Intro here: http://www.Solutioneur.com
He’s also working on healthcare.
Solve something. THAT will make a difference.
I also have to say that job-creation will never come from government programs denies the important role government at the local, state, and federal levels plays in every aspect of our lives. I think Elizabeth Warren said this best when describing how no business person could be successful without all the many benefits conferred on them by government. An effective public education system is not the only "government program" that has the capacity to create jobs but it is one of the most important.
I would love to envision not just a country, but a world of people who value education for its intrinsic benefits- not to booster the economy, or to create "innovative" corp. like Apple per se, but to create a generation of individuals who can think freely, question the current body of knowledge, and support one another through the development of personal & institutional ethics.
I didn't have a calculator until I entered college, there was no computer projector in ANY class (including college), there were 32-35 kids in each classroom, I had never heard of a teacher's aide, etc.
The difference between then and now boils down to RESPECT. If my teacher told us to eat glass...we ate glass. If I got spanked in school, I would NEVER tell my father, because he would have spanked me for embarrassing our family.
Too many snot-nosed kids think they hold the same authority as the teacher...that is wrong on EVERY level.
If what you want to create is an entire generation (generations) of automatons that do what they're told when they're told to do it but can't think for themselves, then we should go back to the good old days as you so fondly remember them.
Success in education has everything to do with respecting children for who and what they are as people, because *that's* the best environment in which to learn.
Learning takes discipline.
There is no "cure" for poverty. There will always be poor people, because there will always be unemployment and there will always be minimum wage jobs. If everyone in the country were magically educated to a college level, it would do nothing to eliminate poverty. We as a society need to accept that and actually pay for the social programs that alleviate the effects of poverty, so we can alleviate the myriad social problems that come with it. Or we can just continue incarcerating a growing percentage of our population...
Just what has Apple done for the economy? It has created products that don't benefit humanity but that people, thanks to Apple's marketing, feel compelled to purchase at high prices, thus denying themselves other, more worthwhile purchases. And for all that Apple posts billions in dollars of profit every quarter, it is not a source of mass employment. Fewer than 50,000 people in the US work at Apple, and most of those 50,000 are low-paid retail workers.
The most that creativity and innovation can give us is more Apples, but we have 15 million unemployed Americans. Assuming Apple actually creates 250,000 jobs in the US, is there room for 60 more Apples? Of course not.
Here's what people don't get: we can't redo the 20th century. The big inventions of the early 20th century, the automobile, the harnessing of electricity for domestic use, simply cannot be repeated. As Tyler Cowen writes, we've picked all the low-lying fruit. Basically, we have arrived at time in human history when everything people need to live is easily produced at a cost so low that it shouldn't be metered.
Imagine if someone with Steve Jobs' inventiveness and marketing prowess devoted such skills to important social issues, like the elimination of poverty. So who in this exchange is lacking in critical thinking? Perhaps it's you.
reform american education? first abolish NCLB, then start the discussion.
the corporate forces of "privatization" have been seeking to erode the system.
why should we believe any "reformer" these days? first get rid of the arrow inn
the side of educators, the pointless, useless teaching-to-the-test to defund,
called NO Child Left Behind, that trojan horse forced upon us by corporatists.
only whoever does that will have the faith of educators in america. that is what
ailing american education today. it stifles innovation, degreades facilities, strips
funding, destroys needed methods of great teaching, denies educators the option
to practice professionally with excellence. get rid of NCLB or back off !
michelle rhee, this means you. and anyone who thinks she is great, this means you too.
If there is a problem teaching to the test (which happens to be the only education I ever received) then the problem is with the content of the test....not the fact that the kids are being tested.
As an educator myself, albeit at the graduate level, and someone who has worked at the school district level for educational reform, in my opinion what is most-stifling to educators is not being given the freedom to educate. Repealing NCLB is merely one aspect of the kind of holistic reform required.