It's graduation season again -- yet nobody seems to be celebrating.
On college campuses, graduates are entering an economy in which the stable career paths of yesteryear are disappearing -- and the specialized job opportunities of tomorrow have yet to appear. And in communities across the country, parents and young people are left wondering what exactly those past four years of high school were in service of -- and how much, if any, truly transformational learning occurred.
Something's gotta give. The Industrial-Age model of schooling, which benefited 20th-century generations by serving as a legitimate ticket to the middle class, has clearly run its course. In its place, we need a model for a new age -- the Democratic Age. And we need strategies for ensuring that young people learn how to be successful in the 21st-century world of work, life, and our democratic society.
We can get there, but to do so we need to start asking -- and answering -- the three most essential questions in education reform:
1. How do people learn best?
Over the past several years, a slew of research from a range of fields has helped illuminate a much deeper understanding of what powerful learning actually looks like -- and requires. We know the ideal learning environment is challenging, engaging, relevant, supportive, and experiential. And we know that learners of all ages are more motivated when they can apply what they are learning to do something that has an impact on others -- especially their local community.
The bad news is that too many schools are still crafting environments in which learning -- if you can even call it that -- depends less on these attributes than on obedience, memorization, conformity, and a set of requirements first deemed important a century ago.
The good news is that we already have schools across the country lighting a different path. At High Tech High in San Diego, for example, all learning opportunities are hands-on, supportive, and personalized. As school founder Larry Rosenstock explains, "Students pursue personal interests through projects. Students with special needs receive all the individual attention they need. And facilities are tailored to individual and small-group learning, including project rooms for hands-on activities and exhibition spaces for individual work."
Best of all, the High Tech High model isn't so precious or rare that our only hope is to remake every other school in its image. Instead, the rest of us can create our own success stories by doing what Larry Rosenstock did -- heeding what we now know about how people learn, and operationalizing those insights into an actual school.
It's environmental standards for learning we need -- not a standardization of content or teaching practices.
2. What are the essential skills of a free people?
Whether we intend them to or not, every school is structured to value a different type of citizen. In China, for example -- the site of my first teaching experience -- the needs of the community are valued more than the needs of any individual. As a result, in the school in which I taught, free expression was discouraged, conformity was encouraged -- and China got the citizens it sought.
In the America of the Industrial Age, one could argue we experienced similar alignment. After all, the early 20th century was characterized by exponential growth in its general and school populations, and a stable set of jobs for young people to fill. Today, however, the forces of globalization and democratization have elevated a different set of challenges and opportunities -- and, by design, a different set of skills. Yet schools have not caught up to the shift, which is why so many of our graduates are emerging unprepared for the challenges and opportunities of the modern world.
What would happen if every school in America scrapped its current set of graduation requirements, and started over by identifying what it believes to be the essential skills of a free people -- in work and in life?
One school in New Hampshire, the Monadnock Community Connections School (or MC2 for short), is already doing this. At MC2, students must demonstrate mastery in 17 habits of mind and work in order to fulfill the school's mission statement -- "empowering each individual with the knowledge and skills to use his or her unique voice, effectively and with integrity, in co-creating our common public world." These habits -- which apply to every imaginable learning experience, from internships to classes to personal learning that occurs outside school -- all have concrete indicators that are delineated in levels ranging from Novice to Expert. And not surprisingly, the habits reflect the skills most essential for the challenges of the Democratic Age - from self-direction and creativity to critical thinking and collaboration. As school founder Kim Carter explains it, "In preparing a student for their chosen post-secondary path, be it college or work, it's critical to know what skills and knowledge will help to shape the decisions that impact their life."
Makes sense, right? So what are the rest of us waiting for?
3. What does it mean to be free?
In the end, our ability to answer the first two questions is in the ultimate service of the third. And yet the reality is that too many of us still understand what it means to be free in terms of the style of jeans we choose to wear, not the quality of ideas we choose to express.
The Founders certainly understood it differently, and so must we if wish to recalibrate our schools for the modern era. In such a world, what it means to be free would mean having the space to discover one's full worth -- and developing the capacity to unleash one's full potential. Our schools and colleges would be places where we proactively created healthy, high-functioning learning environments. And our graduates would know, embody, and be able to apply the essential skills of a free people.
The answers we seek for creating such a system of schools are all around us. We just need to start asking the right questions.
Follow Sam Chaltain on Twitter: www.twitter.com/samchaltain
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How do we know this is true? Who do you see making use of the free public libraries (while they are still open)? What types of things do people look at on the internet? Now there is an interesting piece of research--to track what students of different levels and status are doing on the internet.
Read David Brooks new book on the Social Animal---about people learning a social and emotional repertoire!!!!!
The along came theorists like Dr. Spock who started talking about child self esteem and that messed things up. It used to be that only those who could really handle the academic load went on to higher learning; others went into vocational programs. Nowadays, we have this silly notion that EVERYONE must go to university--and that is our problem. Many European nations still stratify their education systems and levels--and I know because I now teach High School in Europe.
So, if you want to improve education--you need to go back and take the best elements of the system our parents went through. Not all of it, to be sure, but there are many elements that need to be returned to------the first being discipline and effort. We talk about skills for this century: so Bill Gates wants every kid to be on the internet. But students have to learn to read and write, and think before getting on a computer---duh! But then the government gets involved and then industry gets involved and we wonder why kids can't do simple things. Yet, 25-30 years ago--the majority of people could do basic skills that are now lost!!!!
We are now doubling our knowledge at an unprecedented rate. The sheer amount of information available today is staggering.
I have deep concerns about schools moving to replace humanities with training. Every college educated person should also be a better citizen, not just a collection of practiced business skills. The ability to critically reflect on our culture and institutions is invaluable in a democracy like ours.
But now we have cheap computers and can get free science fiction.
Subversive by Reynolds Mack
http://www.onread.com/book/Subversive-13972/
Cost of Living by Sheckley Robert
http://www.onread.com/book/Cost-of-Living-20266/
Of course there are cool things to do with the right computer.
Celestia: space simulation of the universe in 3D
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
GeoGebra: Interactive graphics, algebra and spreadsheet
http://www.geogebra.org/cms/
Solve Elec: draw and analyze electrical circuits
http://www.physicsbox.com/indexsolveelec2en.html
Logisim: Digital logic circuit simulator
http://sourceforge.net/projects/circuit/
Will those run on an Android tablet? Or an iPad?
psik
I've been at this game since 1990. The only thing constant, has been change and my love for teaching kids. Wonder when people will figure out how little a teacher really has to do with a student being able to learn whatever it is that someone in an ivory tower determined to be the most valid.
No one asks me. I guess decades of teaching reading means very little to anyone - except to my students who will learn to read if I have anything to do with it!
I remember when it was first set up the guy that used to run our after school program was their VP, only it was called something else. Something CEOish. At that time I questioned this and was told their administrative staff were classified, not certificated. i.E. not teachers. I was also told they don't hire "old" teachers so don't bother to apply unless you're in your 20s.
They also hand pick students as many of the local charters do. Oh, not by race or economic status. By GPA and citizenship. That is if you're not an A student with a clean disciplinary record, you're not likely to get in.
Preuss is the same.
You can do a lot with low class sizes, access to the latest technology and hand picked students. 535 students 9-12. (The middle school I worked at had 1500 students 6-8 by comparison). It's a stripped down curriculum of Math, Science and Humanities.
The second one is a heck of an effective sorting mechanism, and can fly under the radar so as to let proponents mislead the uninformed into believing that the student population is an accurate representation of the community.
And just because they have a balance of zip code, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. doesn't mean they still don't cherrypick. You have to have an acceptable GPA and behavior record. They don't just take anyone like regular public schools do. I would also like to see the percentage of special needs students in these schools because there are no sp. ed. teachers listed on any of the staff lists. Also no physical education. No librarians. One music teacher. Limited art and all technology based. In other words, a very narrow curriculum.
There are other inequalities too. Ones that cost money. So comparing this charter to other public schools and implying that they can duplicate the same successes is misleading. The tax payers won't approve the money needed.
http://www.raffles-iao.com/colleges/malaysia-kuala-lumpur.html
As a society do we REALLY want to turn out drones for the workforce? Let's face it I believe that we need sages on stages and drill and kill in order to understand what the business world is doing to try and get from us. Just take a look at this financial mess that business created. Is it wise to tie learning to business making money.... Bernie madoff......
http://TheEducatedSociety.com/creating-a-culture-of-education-part-4-the-governments-role/
http://TheEducatedSociety.com/the-doe-needs-a-mission-statement/
What do you think?
Can you write?
Can you add?
The article reminds me of some programs that began in universities in the 60's - "develop your own plan of study, become a well-rounded person and you will suceed". In the early 80's when I graduated, we called such people "unemployable".
There is also nothing wrong with memorization. Good memory is necessary to store all the knowledge needed for employment, so it needs to be practiced too.
In this life, you are welcome to experiment all you want, but on your own time and money
are you awake?
can you please put yor phone away?
I think you are on the right track with your ideas of education. I think the real question is who does education serve, the social community or the business, industrial community.