The Big Debate on American Education
November 4th, 2011 // 4:39 pm @ Oliver DeMille
Home Schools, the New Private Schools, and Other Non-Traditional Learning
The current national commentary on American education is split by a major paradox.
On the one hand, nearly all the experts are convinced that our schools must find a way to effectively and consistently teach the values and skills of innovation and initiative.
If we fail in this, everyone seems to agree, the competitiveness of U.S. workers and the economy will continue to fall behind other nations.
As Gary Shapiro wrote:
“Our nation is looking into the abyss. With a blinding focus on the present, our government is neglecting a future that demands thoughtful action.
“The only valid government action is that which invests in our children. This requires hard choices…
“America is in crisis. What is required is a commitment to innovation and growth. We can and must succeed.
“With popular and political resolve, we can reverse America’s decline…. America must become the world’s innovative engine once again; we cannot fail.”
And education is the key.
On the other hand, many of the top education decision-makers seem committed to only making changes when there is a consensus among educators, parents, experts and administrators.
They adamantly criticize any who take bold, innovative initiate to improve the situation.
In the meantime, they wait timidly, albeit loudly, for a consensus which never comes.
Because of this view, the innovative success of many parents in home schools, teachers in small private schools and other non-traditional educational offerings go unnoticed or undervalued by the national press.
The reality is, as Orrin Woodward put it: “If everyone agrees with what you’re doing, it isn’t innovative.”
The growing Global Achievement Gap in our schools, as outlined by Tony Wagner’s book of this title, presents an ominous warning for Americans.
We can change things if we choose, Wagner says, by adopting the following values and skills in our school curriculum: critical thinking, agility, adaptability, initiative, curiosity, imagination and entrepreneurialism, among others.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan quoted Wagner in Foreign Affairs:
“…there is a happy ‘convergence between the skills most needed in the global knowledge economy and those most needed to keep our economy safe and vibrant.’”
He also foreshadowed the decades ahead by quoting President Obama:
“The nation that out-educates us today is going to out-compete us tomorrow.”
It is difficult to imagine our public schools meeting these lofty needs if our teachers are expected to be anything but entrepreneurial, innovative and agile, when they in fact work in an environment that discourages and at times punishes precisely such behaviors.
It is even more impossible to make the needed changes to our education system if we must wait for everyone to agree on a consensus of action.
Change always comes with a few courageous souls taking the lead, showing what can work, and helping others follow their innovative path.
The only way we’re going to see a burst of innovation and initiative in American education is to start paying attention to the myriad exciting educational innovations already occurring.
As Malcolm Gladwell suggests, the leadership right now in many arenas—including education—is occurring outside the mainstream, led by “Outliers” who just forget the experts and create new and better ways of doing things.
If you are one of these educational innovators—at home or in the classroom—keep taking the lead. You are the future of American success!
Category : Education &Family &Featured &Leadership &Liberty &Mission
Keith
12 years ago
It takes two to make the stand for one to overcome. That is essence of a great education. It takes one to make the stand to correct, and another to stand to be corrected. The boomer establishment has taught to question authority, but they failed to teach their kids to “stand to be corrected.” The big difference between the generation before the boomer establishment and the boomers themselves is this: while boomers changed the rules and said to themselves to question authority and do what you love, they did not carry the value base of their parents into the narrative by saying “stand to be corrected and take responsibility.” When you take responsibility you enter the open forum to be corrected. Students today simply refuse this, and teachers simply refuse making a stand. Look at the Internet the boomer’s created. Can you correct anyone? Does its design naturally lend itself to being corrected? Right now the battle is underway. It is not between the old prestitute media and the alternative media. That battle has been won by the new alternative media. The battle is between a blogger’s one-way feed that is unchallenged and unedited and a freedom media that puts all bloggers and readers in the same room to be ranked, rated and reviewed by themselves and all within a community. Until we get a technology that mimics the open forum and creates more freedom to correct and be corrected in the face of all within a closed environment, thus letting natural leadership to surface and not positions of new establishment, we are doomed. Who could design such a technology and when? Not surprisingly, it will take the parents of boomers telling the new boomer establishment how to do it. If you have not noticed, some of the greatest and newest power centers in the world are those born before the boomers. They have been speaking for years and they are now standing up and many are listening. This is called education.
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Blake Elliott
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Ironically, the more traditional forms of education are now considered non-traditional, and the genuine non-traditional forms are considered the traditional. Why does man assume they know with what they don’t know?