This fall, as young people across the country settle back
into the rhythms and requirements of a new school year, the rest of us might
want to heed the words of a former U.S. president and ask ourselves an old
question:
“Is our children learning?”
The answer, of course, is that we can’t know for
sure, since our education system isn’t even being asked to measure whether or
not young people are learning – only
whether they are demonstrating progress on basic-skills standardized tests in 3
and 8 grade reading and math.
As everyone knows, learning involves more than basic skills
and regurgitating information. It requires higher-order skills and the capacity
to digest, make sense of, and apply what we’ve been taught.
We can do better. We can have schools in every neighborhood that teach
children both basic- and higher-order skills, that allow creativity and
innovation to flourish, and that lead all children to discover how to fully and
effectively participate in our economy and democracy.
Before that can happen, however, we need to start having a
different conversation. We need to restore the focus of public education reform
to its rightful place – on learning, and on the core conditions that best
support it.
To bring about
this subtle shift of thinking, a growing coalition of organizations is asking
the nation to help rethink learning now (rethinklearningnow.com) by sparking a
national conversation about schooling – and how best to improve it so that all
children can finally receive, 55 years after Brown v. Board of Education, a high-quality public
education.
Aside from releasing three provocative, conversation-starting PSAs
(watch them here), the campaign’s first step is to invite people to recount
powerful learning experiences and identify the attributes that made those
experiences so successful.
Already, the campaign has collected a diverse set of stories
– from citizens to Senators to the Secretary of Education himself – and begun
outlining a core set of essential conditions for schools to cultivate.
- DwayneB. from Maryland wrote about an unlikely spark for his learning experience – aprison cell. “The nonsense that I'd spent hours talking about on streetcorners was no longer as important and I found myself with a real need tocommunicate, to understand what was written in the books I'd been reading foryears.”
- AlF. from Minnesota wrote instead about his 4 grade teacher, Mrs.Molin, and the impact she had on her students. “We need to make sure today'sstudents are able to learn in that kind of creative, nurturing environment, sothey can find their own passions and become strong, well-rounded adults.”
- AndArne D. from Chicago talked about spending time in his mother’s after schooltutoring program on the South Side of Chicago. “Everyone was challenged to dohis or her best, every single day,” he wrote. “It was the ultimate in highexpectations, both for individuals and the group as a whole.”
In the weeks and months ahead, as the number of stories
grows over time, the campaign is representing visually, via a tag cloud, the
attributes that appear most often across people’s experiences. The
purpose is to identify the core conditions that best support powerful learning
so that all of us can be more prepared to ask our lawmakers to institute
reforms based more clearly on what young people need in order to thrive – and
stay – in school.
Of course, if
the campaign’s only plan was to gather stories and assume that by their sheer
weight and beauty mountains would move, we’d all be wasting our time. So
Rethink Learning Now is following two strategic paths simultaneously - one
grassroots, one grasstops - and intending for them to converge as Congress
eventually turns its attention to ESEA.
This fall, while
people around the country reflect on their personal learning experiences,
leaders of the campaign’s supporting organizations will be meeting with each
other and with key offices on Capitol Hill, gathering information, refining
policy proposals, and establishing the campaign as a way to link the needs of
policymakers with the insights of the general public.
The campaign
will also sponsor three policy briefings this fall - one for each of the
campaign's core pillars: learning, teaching, and fairness. Along the way,
campaign supporters will provide feedback on all proposals – and ensure that
all recommendations are aligned with the collective insights of the campaign’s
participants. Additionally, up to 14 different regional meetings will occur
across the country (a calendar will be added to the campaign web site later
this fall). And there is early talk of hosting a national convening of all of
the campaign's participants sometime next year.
In that sense, the Rethink Learning Now campaign is best
understood as a coordinated one-two punch: first, establish clarity around the
core objectives of effective school reform: powerful learning, highly-effective
teaching, and a system committed to ensuring fairness; and second, take that
coordinated energy and apply it toward specific proposals that result in a
better, more attuned ESEA that empowers educators to create healthy,
high-functioning learning environments.
Join the chorus – and share your voice – at rethinklearningnow.com.