2012 Education Summit
Once upon a time, our formal education system was designed to meet the needs of the Industrial Revolution. Today, we have reached a breaking point, where education does not meet the needs of the globalized, hyperconnected society that continues to evolve.
There are a number of emerging "disruptive innovations" that promise to change the educational landscape to better meet the needs of the 21st century. What are they? How will they affect the current system? What actions can we take to facilitate constructive changes?
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Ed Summit Forum
Ed Summit Forum
Research recently cited by Linda Darling-Hammond, Director of the Stanford University Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, reveals that U.S. students who attend "low-poverty schools" (<10% students in poverty) score at the top of international achievement tests, besting even the formidable Finns. This suggests that the relatively poor aggregate performance of U.S. schools in international comparison is primarily a socio-economic problem, not a pedagogical problem. It also suggests that the currently-evolved state of the Industrial Era education system used throughout the developed and developing countries today successfully mass-produces millions of competitive world-class graduates.
What do these facts tell us about "what education should become?"
David Pearce Snyder
Consulting Futurist
The Snyder Family Enterprise
8628 Garfield Street
Bethesda, MD 20817
david_snyder@verizon.net
phone: 301-530-5807
fax: 301-530-1028
What education should become
Our education system should become one that focuses on student learning and does not carry the burden of supporting the social ills that children bring to school with them that other agencies would be better suited to be responsible for. Poverty lowers a child's chances of being successful in school for a number of different reasons. The social system in the United States needs to take better care of meeting the basic needs of our country's children so they can each come to school ready to learn regardless of how wealthy their parents are.
Education should NOT become a for-profit enterprise. We have publicly provided services for a reason. Making education a money-making enterprise takes the emphasis away from the true mission of our work - preparing our children to be active, well-informed, and critical citizens. It will also lead to, (and already has led to in some degree) the resegregation of our population. If charter schools were meant to stir up the pot they have done their job, but now it's time to make the necessary adjustments to our public schools and get out of business and back into education.
Sandy Kingston, M.A., Sp.A.
Elementary Principal
Alternatives yet to be explored
I was a high school teacher in several charter and district schools in low-income environments in and around Phoenix, Arizona. I taught regular ed, special ed and had full charge of the curriculum at two charter high schools. That being said, I also was completing my MA in Org. Mgmt. during that period and was concerned at the lack of attention being paid to a holistic approach to education. This approach, considering mind/body/spirit integration, seemed to hold the most promise yet was the least attractive to the existing system's administration, even at the State level.
I presented a concept to the director of the Child Protective Service educational programs and, although he was very impressed with the plan, he acknowledged that it was light years ahead of where the State was and that they may never reach the level of integration the plan set forth.
So what was it? A combination, or rather synergy, of community technology center, peer community and cottage industry instruction that includes rights of passage built into the individual goals and objectives of each student. Pre-assessment of ability and aptitude aligns educational plan with natural passions we so often overlook in lieu of 'testing' for mastery of standards that simply no longer apply.
Memorization and regurgitation does not teach 'how' to learn and understand the motivations of one's learning. How to find information is as important, if not moreso, as what information to know. Community skills, how to get along and be productive, comes through osmosis rather than direct experience in school activities designed to demonstrate mastery. Acknowledging the learning speeds and styles of today's youth being vastly different than the system they are in seems to be the elephant ignored.
There are many great things about our educational system that can be taken forward, but the compartmentalization of the instruction holds little value for the majority of the students and their disgust and disinterest is reflected in the abhorrent number of drop-outs. In Arizona alone, at the time of my research and writing, showed 55% of those detained by police (approx. 6,000 age 14-17 in 2002) were not enrolled in school. We need to listen and learn, not show and tell.
Although I'm sure socio-economic situations do have an affect, I believe our attention is distracted from the real problem and our ability to reform at this time. Returning to building or crafting an environment that promotes a sense of community will do more to restore our society in the long term than any other effort that can be made at this time. The fact that few are addressing the scene from this point of view is disappointing and a disservice to our youth. They are our future. What do we want that future to be?
btw... www.spectrumacademy.org has the basics of the plan.
Lead with Vision,
Zen Benefiel, ma, mba
Possibilities Coagulator
www.BeTheDream.com