A vision of an intellectual renaissance through public education reform
America’s role in the coming age: Our place in the world economy, in the
emerging global community, is no longer “the industrial giant.” That much is
certain. The days of blue collar middle class America are over (for the most part).
While there will always be exceptions, there are now cheaper and better means
of creating stuff in the world.
America has a cultural identity which emphasizes individualism, creativity, and
innovation. As a nation of immigrants, we are all descended from people who did
not settle for “business as usual,” and who took serious risks in order to recreate,
re-invent themselves in the “land of opportunity.” We are the land of
opportunity because we have a culture that celebrates trail-blazing.
We are also blessed with an incredible diversity of perspectives. Few places in
the world boast such an amalgam of cultures, such a lack of a dominant social
reference frame. Ironically, our unity can be derived from our respect for this
diversity.
While we are also blessed with wondrous natural resources, these 2
characteristics of our population (fearless trailblazing and cultural diversity) are
our greatest assets. They must be the focus of the new America: a nation of
innovation, a solution-generating engine, and a global leader of creative
enterprise.
While production will always be instrumental, ideas are the greatest economic
product in the coming age, and if we are to capitalize on our social and cultural
resources, we must do all we can to encourage the free exchange and
exploration of all that could be. We must focus our attention on producing an
environment with the fewest possible restrictions on the exchange of ideas. That
means that we must, wherever possible:
1. support collaboration
The problems of the coming age are far too complex for individuals
to solve. Indeed, the problems of the past have proven too complex
as well, as indicated by the unexpected consequences of most
“solutions” from the past hundred years (and more). Many of our
past errors could have been avoided through greater
interdisciplinary collaboration. We can only find solutions to modern
challenges through collaborative efforts across and between
disciplines
2. engage in transparent enterprise
to facilitate collaboration
3. reduce the presence of counter-information - false claims meant to favor
specific ideas at the expense of truth - To eliminate the unnecessary burden of re-proving what is already known
4. model open-mindedness at all levels
To encourage inclusion and consideration of ideas based on their merit
and not the personal traits of their originators. Values ‘trickle across,’ but
especially ‘down’ since prominent figures are seen and heard most
5. model intellectual risk-taking at all levels (honesty and vulnerability)
All innovation requires some amount of personal risk; at the very least,
there is a risk of rejection. Learning, similarly, requires risk-taking
6. model inclusion at all levels
To get the most from our phenomenal diversity, but also to counter the
perception of others as “others” and by others of us as “others.” This has
dramatic positive national security implications as well as educational ones
1. remove policies which favor specific demographics
2. de-emphasize individual accomplishment in favor of collaborative
achievement
◦ To reinforce the value of joint enterprise and thus, finding worth in all
7. minimize the stress of finding and maintaining access to basic necessities
for survival
To liberate the minds of citizens for the more important work of problem
solving and innovation
1. security
1. personal
2. public
2. health
1. nutrition
2. care
◦
What part does education play? Public education, perhaps America’s greatest
institution (as it is intended), is more important than ever in the coming age.
Learning, as a value, is the cornerstone of the new America. This is not a stretch
for us. As mentioned above, we are a nation of trail-blazers, and that sort of
pioneering risk, combined with an appropriate amount of discipline, is exactly
what is necessary for good learning. We need to put learning at the front of
every aspect of society.
With education happening everywhere, our public schools will increasingly serve
as moderators and facilitators, as well as the purveyors of those abstracted ideas
not so directly accessible through practical application (but which are essential to
much of the ‘cutting edge’ of development).
This will be our mantra: The quest for understanding is riddled with treasure, and
there are infinite paths to travel.
How can schools best support this mantra? Learning must not be about
absorbing what is known. While existing knowledge is a valuable
scaffold on which to stand, what’s much more important is the ability to
address challenges not yet encountered. Further, history shows that
much of our most valuable insights occurred when people challenged the
very foundations of our understanding, pointing out structural
weaknesses in that scaffold. For that reason, learning should be a
personal journey of inquiry, where meaning and purpose is drawn from
within each of us, and fed by the ideas of our companions and our
predecessors. Questions must lead the way, not answers. Answers are
the end of the road.
Recruiting and retaining excellent educators: The tools for a
productive and successful educational experience in any
environment, and for any student, exist. Access to those tools
and/or willingness to learn to use them is usually behind any
failure to produce desirable results. Such a commitment can be
daunting, as it is a career commitment (at least multi-year), and
thus merits appropriate incentives. While effective teaching is
inherently rewarding, becoming effective is generally very
difficult.
If we are to recruit, train, continually develop the best we have to
offer (teachers should be the creme of the crop), we must make
teaching very desirable.
A priority, even before cosmetic features of schools and some
instructional materials (within reason), should be funding faculty
and administration adequately as to recruit dedicated innovators
willing to do what it takes to create a successful educational
environment.
Lovely facilities are wonderful, but the best educators can turn
anything into a learning experience.
Further, payroll must be sufficient to provide teachers with time
and space to collaborate, and collectively develop as
professionals.
Developing Exceptional Teachers: Channels of
communication and cooperation between schools is also key to
success. Schools should be research facilities - research into
instructional innovation - and that research must be available to
interested parties.
And pay structures should incentivize continual development
(commitment, leadership, effective innovation), and hold
instructors accountable for their gains not through the scores of
their students, but through vetted academic research. That is,
instructors would be expected to share their experiences
(through co-teaching and peer observations), produce reports
outlining their instructional innovations and gains, direct staff
training sessions when new techniques are shown to be
effective, and support colleagues’ implementation of strategies
that they champion.
Schools must be inclusive: All of the most effective schools, in any
environment, pay respect to the members of the community that they
serve. It should go a step further, however; schools should welcome all
members of the community to participate in some way. This is not
always easy, but if we are to model cooperative enterprise in education
and society, it needs to take place at every level. And for every
challenge there are at least as many benefits.
For one, every community has a wealth of skill and perspective.
Professionals can offer valuable resources and insight not available to
teachers, as well as providing context for learning experiences
(demonstrating a connection between what is being studied and what
exists outside the classroom).
It invigorates the community for constituents to feel they have value to
the coming generation. It empowers and involves parents and neighbors
to feel connected to the education of the children.
Learning must be relevant: Why, after all, must we construct an artificial
environment in which to learn, when there are countless resources that
are practical, urgent, and impactful, all around us. Granted, there are a
number of ideas that are fundamental to much of what is practical, but
which cannot be approached without some amount of modeling and/or
purely cognitive exercise, but even those skills and ideas are, indirectly,
connected with something real. And why would anyone learn unless the
learning is relevant?
The answer is artificial incentive structures. Up to this point, we have
relied on artificial incentives to motivate students, whether parental
pressure, grading, competitive college application, or “permanent
records.” Each of these may or may not have value to certain students,
and even when they do, it is by some amount of ruse that they are
effective. Why not allow natural inherent human incentives to guide
learning? Our minds are wired to learn and, indeed, it is nearly
impossible to prevent it. Our social needs are among the most powerful
of any motivator, and if we are immersed in a culture which values
exploration and discovery, it is only by a challenging up-river effort that
we stall our own learning. And there are clear and present issues that
need to be dealt with in our communities and in our society - and which
can be the framework of our curricula.
Conclusion: America would benefit from a paradigm shift in the direction of
collaborative idea-generation and away from production. That’s not to say that
production should cease - simply that it should become a more minor sector, or
smaller scale. To do this, we need to reform our educational policy such that
learning becomes a universal value. Public education, as it was originally
intended, should become a community resource, but it should also become a
machine for driving integration, innovation, and collaboration. Schools can be
innovators in the way that we wish our citizens to be innovators, and
communication between members of institutions, and between institutions, can
model the sort of collaboration that will bring about real solutions to pressing
social challenges. Finally, schools can be resources for the entire community,
and at the same time benefit from the resources within the community. These
changes will not be easy. We need to offer sufficient pay to teachers such that
the profession is as desirable as it is valuable, and make teachers accountable
for their instruction in such a way that not only encourages innovation and
continual development, but models those values for students and society.
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