Merciless Education Reform
Over 100 years ago, one of America’s earliest education reformers, John Dewey, published “My Pedagogic Creed,” succinctly and wisely declaring that “all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race.” (http://bit.ly/Ac8Svd).
No doubt our social consciousness changed faster in the past 20 years than in the past 200 with the advent of personal computing power. The question is not whether old world educators relent, it’s when.
The digital world took me quickly and at age 11 I began publishing a monthly newsletter, The Tappan Times, inspired by my father’s childhood newsletter, The Blockbuster.
Even then I spoke on technology, politics, and education, reflecting my primary personal experiences of the time. In high school, I expanded coverage to movies, local and national sports, comics, and creative writing through the employ of friends.
Despite exercising the very freedom of press learned about during history class, doing so outside of school time, my drive for journalism was met with veiled threats, intimidation, and attempted discouragement.
To wit: a prying assistant principal’s meeting to get at the student author of a letter to the editor critical of the school administration, whose name I protected. An untenable libel threat because of a quote-filled exposition on tenure not granted to three teachers both academically and personally respected by my peers. A “mind your own business” reprimand for an exposé on a computer-aided design and engineering course that had no design software to speak of.
Our children’s creative and entrepreneurial expression is still met with similar challenges, like administrators who sue students for creative, if critical, blogs (http://bit.ly/xKmU6f).
Looking to prevent personal student expression, discounting self-learning through Google and YouTube, and even avoiding digital textbooks, it’s no wonder that 30% of high school freshman drop out (http://1.usa.gov/xXEqss). That’s 7,000 students every single day.
There is considerable and interesting research on the topic (http://bit.ly/wFmcmt) around testing, socioeconomics, and gender. But in our increasingly democratizing, market-based lives, it’s simpler than that: America’s traditional K12 model does not compete.
Typical top-down “father knows best” test-driven K12 education does not compete for the attention of its students, losing out to entertainment gaming (instead of leveraging advances in education-based gaming), losing out to instruction from age-peers on YouTube (instead of teaching teachers how to create bite-size videos), and losing out to a stimulus-heavy media market.
Drop-out laws are not the answer. Proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union and most recently bandwagoned by New Jersey (http://bit.ly/xy2iJR), it assumes that the student is wrong for wanting to drop-out instead of the education content being wrong for not engaging students.
In a flipped classroom, there is hope
Fortunately, we are a country of innovators, revealing teachers and administrators who embrace adaptation and are committed to winning the battle for students’ minds and America’s global competitiveness.
Flipped classroom (http://bit.ly/yFnMPY) is a perfect example of the small changes that make huge differences. A 30% failure rate becomes 11% because administrators work to understand the day-to-day pressures of students (http://bit.ly/yFjFZR).
Information is processed at home through digital videos and content, at each student’s pace, and the classroom is used for group analysis and question-answering, instead of question-generating. Education can change.
As usual, the deeper answer is participation in education, whether you have a child or not. Our children’s futures are consistently bargained for increasing K12 education dollars. Is it not time for our children’s futures to also inspire something more than money?
Take personal action: Google your school district, find their calendar, and attend the next school district meeting.
Ask the simple question: What are you doing to get our town’s children interested in learning for the sake of learning again?
As an Educational Consultant/Therapist having initiated a private practice in 1983, I have most certainly witnessed the changes as well as the inertia within our educational systems. The students I serve are bright, innovative and generally bored with school. They are dynamic learners. They are not particularly motivated by having to digest prepackaged information and throw it back simply because that is what one is expected to do in many courses of study. They want to know the ‘why’ of a topic… how is it relevant, what is its importance, what is its effect, what is its benefit? Cause and effect are significant considerations. Yes, education is to be relevant, interactive, and respectful of development, cognition, interests, learning styles and creativity. Improvement and engagement in the academics and the arts are an ever present reality for the students who have availed themselves of viable supports and strategies. Masterful and purposeful learning defines the APOGEE Achiever. In answer to your concluding question, I am available. Inquiries from students, parents, educators, administrator, are indeed welcomed. http://www.apogeelearning.blogspot.com
I cannot thank you enough for this insight! You couldn’t be more right, if I only had found you sooner…