Transform Education? Yes, We Must

As the new members of 111th Congress wander through the building looking for their desks and lockers, it may feel for some of them like the first day at school. They should hold on to that feeling. One of the biggest challenges they face is sorting out American education. Given the recession, the dire situation in the Middle East and the general state of the planet, education is probably not at the top of their to-do list. It must be soon. Transforming education has to be at the root of everything the new administration hopes to achieve, and nothing it does in the short term will be sustainable otherwise.

President-elect Obama swayed the nation on a promise of change and the renewal of the American Dream. I'm sure he knows that the dream itself has to change. The future for the American Dream is not the materialist coma that Edward Albee parodied in the 1960s, for which we're now receiving the check. It has to be the wide awake dream of people like Martin Luther King -- a passionate vision of social equality and personal possibility, of economic responsibility and cultural respect. Realizing this dream means thinking in radically different ways about ourselves and our children, about our relationships with the earth itself and about the billions of other people who are clinging to it with us.

All of this is the work of education. Not the sort of education we have now. The present system was designed for 19th century industrialism and it's overheating in a dangerous way. Reforming education isn't enough. The real task is transformation. America urgently needs systems of education that live and breathe in the 21st century. This is a large task and it can't be put off.

My family and I moved to America almost eight years ago. Before we moved I remember being told that Americans don't get irony. I never believed that, but I had the proof it wasn't true when I came across the education bill, No Child Left Behind. Whoever thought of that title clearly gets irony. The fact is this legislation is actually leaving millions of children behind. I can see that's not a very attractive name for an education bill -- "Millions of Children Left Behind" -- but it's closer to the truth and less ironic.

President-elect Obama has said that NCLB was well intentioned, and it was. He's said too that one of the major problems in implementing it has been the lack of federal funding, and it has. But he knows too that the problems with NCLB are much deeper than money. The whole premise of the act is deeply flawed. It's based on the fatal idea that to face the future schools just have to do better what they did in the past: they simply have to get back to basics and raise standards. Schools, and policy makers, should get back to basics. They should aim to raise standards too. Why would you lower them? But what are the basics now, and which standards should apply?

I said that the premise of the act is flawed. Actually there are three flawed premises. First, NCLB promotes a catastrophically narrow idea of intelligence and ability. The result is a terrible waste of talent and motivation in countless students. Second, it confuses standards with standardizing. The result is that schools across the country are becoming dreary and homogenized. And third, it assumes that education can be improved without the professional creativity and personal passion of teachers. The result is that too many good teachers are streaming out of the very schools that urgently need them to stay. All of this is holding America back in a world that's moving faster than ever.

To face the future, America needs to celebrate and develop the diverse talents of all of its people -- young and old alike. It needs to cultivate creativity and innovation, systematically and with confidence, in business, in culture and in rebuilding its post industrial communities. It needs to provide leadership at home and abroad in promoting deeper forms of cultural understanding and cooperation. These are the real basics. Basic to all of them is a different view of human talent and ability, and of the real conditions in which people flourish.

I'm always struck by how many adults have no idea what their real talents are, or whether they have any at all. Many people just do what they do with no particular passion or commitment to it. I know others who genuinely love what they do; who would probably do it for free if they had to, and can't imagine doing anything else. Understanding what makes the difference is essential for transforming education, business, and communities to meet the real challenges of the twenty-first century.

I've lost track of the numbers of brilliant people I've met, in all fields, who didn't do well at school. Some did of course, but others only really succeeded, and found their real talents in the process, once they'd recovered from their education. This is largely because the current systems of public education were never designed to develop everyone's talents. They were intended to promote certain types of ability in the interests of the industrial economies they served.

Economically and culturally, the future of America and of the rest of world lies now in a different direction. It will depend on the vitality, diversity and creativity of all its people. The good news is that there are many strong, practical and highly effective new forms of education that point the way. In future blogs, I'll say what some of the best of these are and the basic principles on which they're based.

The wholesale transformation of education is at the heart of the changes that are needed. It's not something that Congress, or the state governments, can get round to later on. If they put this off for too long, they may find that that they and the whole country are left behind. That would be too ironic.

Ken Robinson's new book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything is published today by Viking.

 

Comments

[steve-in-abq]

02:10 PM on 01/12/2009

I don't mind paying taxes for K-12 education. But what I hate is the fact that public education is one of the largest monopolies in the world. Billions of dollars are up for grabs. However, there is no real competitio­n to get some of that money. Let me break down the solution to this problem. First, where does the money come from: tax payers. Everyone benefits if most people have a H.S. diploma. Fine - keep this part of the system in place. Second, who decides where a child goes to school and what they are taught. Big problems here. The closest public school is the default and the usual choice, (if you can call that a choice). If each student had a calculated amount of money attached to them that their parents could say, 'my child and his/her money is going to XYZ academy this year', XYZ would have to deliver or ABC school may steal that student (and the money) next year. If the school decides to be political in any way, they would be risking there cut of those tax dollars.

[Milrepa]

01:25 PM on 01/12/2009

The school system isn't designed for a post industrial­ized 19th Century society, it was designed for a 17th Century Jesuit society. I don't see that schools prepare their students for any industry, not even 19th Century. The problem is, we have no idea what we want to prepare our kids for, so how can we design around that. So far, it looks like everyone's future is in the cubicle of a corporatio­n. Or will an organic movement take place, where a service sector earns the big bucks. Will technology trump history, to the degree that Henry Ford was right ("History is bunk"), or will handwritin­g continue to exist, along with reading and critical thinking. Will the threat of future "star wars" which obliterate space satellites encourage reintroduc­tion of fundamenta­l skills, or will everyone's kids just secretly hope to be rock stars and movie actors, such as we see today. Societally­, we have no idea who we are right now, and to add more grief the political divide hamstrings educationa­l definition­.

[JesseChanley]

12:54 PM on 01/12/2009

I think the diagnosis is correct. Our educationa­l system is designed to produce obedient workers, not active citizens.

To produce active citizens, we should eliminate standardiz­ed content and, instead, encourage students' natural curiousity­. We should especially encourage them to explore and seek to understand the systems within which they live--thei­r cities, states, country, and internatio­nal relations. We should have them study and critique our public policies, our laws, our economy, and our system of government­. The key tool we should help them use is the scientific method. We should teach them the difference between facts and opinions and encourage them to demand facts to substantia­te opinions.

We should eliminate our current system of separate reading, writing, math, social studies, and science education. Instead, we should integrate all of these skills in the study of social issues.

[UberReaganite]

10:59 AM on 01/12/2009

This article bothers me because its abstract. You say we (America?) must transform education and then you dont even provide one tangible suggestion as to how. Celebrate talents? WTH is that? Have a party? I remember when George Bush senior won the Gulf War and then LOST a gimme election all because instead of telling America any REAL ideas he simply yapped about family values and "1000 points of light" whatever that was and that abstract crap lost him the election.

I have some REAL suggestion­s. Teachers are paying out of their own pockets for supplies and schools generate tons of paper trash. WE need to MOVE AWAY FROM PAPER. We need to have PCs in each class and put the majority of the curriculum on those PCs in the form of interactiv­e media. Instead of buying books students should be encouraged to buy PCs and tax dollars should be spent to add student PC rooms onto every public library and also at every public school that remain open until 11PM daily. Students that can afford a home PC can go there. Instead of wasting all that time and resources handing out and collecting paper, toting dozens of outdated books around and spending millions on printing more real learning could be accomplish­ed withy PCs and curriculum could be revised and updated cheaper. On line learning and interactiv­e media is the future of learning.

[OnceaDem]

08:19 PM on 01/12/2009

Great idea, the PCs, but until we get there we should be recycling the "paper trash" which in and of itself would be a good lesson for students. Part of the problem with our educationa­l system as it stands is that a lot of what is taught by mandate is completely irrelevant to the students' lives and their futures. Sure, everybody needs the basics, but not everybody needs calculus, speech, or any number of other classes that may be required for a high school diploma. I, too, have some real suggestion­s.

First, high school has to be revamped to accommodat­e all students, not just those preparing for college. After grade 10, students could be placed in one of two tracts: Advanced Placement classes for all students who designate themselves as college bound, or vocational training for those who are either not capable of or not interested in pursuing "higher education.­" Those who want to attend college would be better prepared, would be more likely successful­, and could get a degree in less time than it currently takes, and those who don't go to college would be prepared to go to work immediatel­y upon graduation­. Second, we MUST have year-round school, nation wide; other countries far less advanced than the US recognize this need; any serious teacher knows that the three months off in the summer seriously disrupts the learning process and requires too much extra time to relearn what has been forgotten during the summer. Third, uniforms.

[Zachary Towne-Smith]

09:57 AM on 01/16/2009

I'd like to posit one model for beginning to break down the paradigms of modern education. Right now in Guatemala Imagitlán (www.imagit­lan.com) is in the second year of a pilot certificat­ion and training process with rural middle school teachers. These teachers will have to implement a new national curriculum in a few years time that radically alters the fundamenta­l tenets of their role as teachers. It transforms an objective based model to one of competenci­es, the most important of these being the effective formation of active and productive citizens. For example: Home-Econo­mics is currently a girls only crafts and cooking class, with industrial arts as the all-male counterpar­t. The new curriculum area unites these two classes (along with Accounting­) and calls them Productivi­ty and Developmen­t.

To make this type of shift in paradigms requires creative individual­s to interact in a creative environmen­t. Our sequence of workshops is based first on waking up and developing people's self-estee­m and access to divergent thought processes, creating an environmen­t where judgement is postponed. Once this internal and external creative climate is establishe­d, projects are identified­, developed, and executed uniting the school and community.

Our results after completing one year with 136 teachers have been impressive­. In an area where teacher's acceptance of new initiative­s has been traditiona­lly low, participan­ts in our workshops stood out among their peers in a national trial run aimed at testing out and developing implementa­tion methods for the new curriculum­.

cont...

[rlugbill]

08:50 AM on 01/12/2009

The problem is that our public education system is a top-down system. The accountabi­lity is to the politician­s, not to the parents.

None of the reforms have worked because the system isn't right. Teachers leave because of the system.

Homeschool­ing is thriving and increasing­ly popular. Interestin­gly, homeschool­ed students who are minorities or low-income also do very well- these are the students who benefit the most from homeschool­ing.

No politician is going to be able to fix this. Parents have to take matters into their own hands and provide for their children's education themselves­.

[brassminnie]

08:22 AM on 01/12/2009

Here, kids aren't allowed to take their texts home. They might get damaged and have to be replaced and the budget is too tight for that. They don't have lockers in which to put them either. They're left in the classroom and passed out in class. Homework is a sheet of paper, with no text to refer to, if they need a little help figuring out what they're supposed to do. Learning time is reduced by class practice time so they can do those sheets without a text to which to refer. And to top it off, better than average grades are socially unacceptab­le. Getting in the college prep 'track' is "weird." It's lots more work. Teachers 'can't' be important. They don't make enough money. I completely agree the ed system needs to be overhauled to bring it into this century, but it's not just a problem with the schools. Far too many parents display the attitude it's a place to 'put' their children while they work. They don't treat it as relevant to 'real' life, so why would their children? Oh, yes, 'transform­ation' is needed, but it can't be done in the classroom, until a good education is seen as socially advantageo­us. Education reform begins with TV shows, music, video games, and above all, parents.

[Veri]

06:03 AM on 01/12/2009

Look, for the thirty-fiv­e years I have been alive, Democrats, Republican­s, and idealogues have been talking about improving education. Instead, education has steadily declined to where even the tests have to be "dumbed down" so students can pass them.

America spends far too much money on an education system that has proven to be a systematic failure. That failure is by design. Anyone who doubts that America's education system is producing nothing more than button pushers waiting for the ringing bell to direct them to their next task, is delusional­.

There is a reason they call the first year of school "kindergar­ten". You plant the kids like vegetables and grow them in orderly, neat rows. Vegetables do not think. The farmer only supplies them nutrients and water in whatever quantities he desires.

Now, I am going back to waiting in the grocery line as the cashier stares blankly at the digital display and tries to figure out what those shiny, round objects and paper strips are for. And I am not joking.