Rethinking Schools

I came across this video through a colleague and thought it was appropriate for this blog and its intended viewers. While it is probably slightly biased given the source, it is a MUST WATCH FOR ALL OF US IN EDUCATION STRUGGLING WITH MANDATED CURRICULUMS.

Success in the New Economy from Brian Y. Marsh on Vimeo.

Here is my reflection of the video I have posted above. Yes, it is lengthy, but I would enjoy some feedback:

Educators have a misguided and myopic view of curriculum and rigor in our high schools. If we ask the question, “How well does the High school curriculum prepare students for their adult life”, we will find that it does little beyond what colleges, policy makers, and panels of educators with their own specific interests want in terms of curriculum standards. We are stuck in tradition and a narrow minded “one shoe fits all” mentality, doing little to enable our students to better themselves both as individuals and in society as a whole. Herbert Spencer’s ideas are relevant today. It is not a matter of what standards to teach as much as it is whose interests are at stake. Our aim should be on preparing our students for healthy life, and how to live in our passions no matter what they might be. Instead, current curriculum frameworks narrowly define our education and current reform does little to change traditional content beyond just reorganizing and replicate the past.

Being older, I feel that my own education has a much broader perspective than the world in which I teach. I started teaching just before the emphasis on standards based curriculums and testing.  My rural education set in the 1970’s and 80’s exposed me to skills that are completely obsolete in high school curriculums today. However, I come to rely on these skills quite often, even more so than my formal classes that prepared me for college and later a career. The courses that have contributed and prepared me the most for my adult life include: Basic Oral Communication, Writing and Journalism, Home Economics, Industrial Arts, and Consumer Science/Economics. My ability to speak to others and communicate effectively account for my success through college, job interviews, interpersonal relationships, and teaching others. Written communication is evident in my responses to these questions and in all capacities of my work and social life, including: social networking, email, blogging, and responding the concerns of others. Home economics has given me the skills to prepare meals for myself and others, sew and mend clothing, use proper etiquette, clean and organize my household, as well as raise my children to be healthy individuals. Industrial arts has allowed me to properly care for my automobile, make household repairs, weld, forge, use equipment safely, and be innovative in projects of interest. Consumer science has given me the skills to balance a checkbook, make investment decisions, fill out and file a tax return, plan for college educations, and live comfortably on a meager salary. Oddly enough, I did not mention science, even though I hold a bachelor’s degree in Biology and teach the subject as a career.

In making changes to the standards and requirements for a high school education, I feel that all students, regardless of career and educational aspirations could benefit from a wider scope of subjects that would suit their talents and passions. Specifically though, the students who may not have a clear picture of their future or who may be just discovering their abilities would benefit by finding a high school education engaging, personalized, meaningful, and useful. With current standards narrowing our definition of education, we are stifling the talents of the majority of our graduates. Those students who aspire to seek higher education will continue to seek those courses of study, but could also benefit from a broader, more universal curriculum. There are many educated people who hold multiple college degrees that can’t change a set of wiper blades on their automobile. In the same regard, there are many more individuals who don’t understand how to manage their money, or provide healthy environments for their children. Advocating for a curriculum with more options, flexible, adaptable to individual interests, is a win for all students in my opinion.

While the U.S. once led the World in education, our education attainment and proficiency trail the industrial world. But do we define proficiency in terms of objective and criterion levels or do we define it as what students should know to live healthy and productive lives. Obviously there are competing philosophies as we look at both the work of Paul Peterson and Grant Wiggins. Regardless, offering choice and autonomy to our students will keep them engaged in school and perhaps open students to find strengths that might have previously been masked by boredom. No doubt, personalized learning models paired with instructional strategies that target the skills and individual student needs will help to remedy an educational system that is deteriorating and failing to produce globally competitive citizens. As it stands, our focus and emphasis on a diverse core of standards has not produced overwhelming results except in isolated pockets of success in some of the most affluent school districts. Our abandonment of minorities and below grade level learners has displaced and alienated a generation of learners in the process to raise standards and compete. We need to focus on standards that all students will need to be successful in the future rather than a broad range of standards decided by committee and party interest. Once these standards are defined, then we need to focus on quality instruction to ensure that all students meet these standards. In return, restructuring high school curriculums with more choice but with limited specific standards will provide graduates with ‘skills to build on” as they seek higher education, trade skills, and job specific training.

I will close this lengthy post with this thought. Broad success in life should not depend on the number of courses taken and the levels of courses taken. An education should prepare students to contribute to society, and hold certain capacities to be a successful, self-sufficient adult, regardless of occupation, level of educational attainment, or demographic. In many ways RTI should be a way to recognize student deficits and provide targeted instruction to meet diverse individual learning needs. In this aspect, RTI should also include developing those skills and including curriculum opportunities to develop the student’s maximum potential while respecting diverse learning needs. While not every child will master Algebra or levels of science instruction such as Chemistry, it is important to match basic levels of both of these subjects to the experiences of everyday life. Finding a narrower vision of standards that all students should master, and then building instruction and providing a flexible curriculum that will enable students to learn these standards and perhaps extend beyond them is part of the RTI tiers. Rather than think about standards in terms of individual subjects, we should think about standards in terms of basic skills such as reading, writing, evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating. Rather than making students jump through hoops of NCLB with endless curriculum standards and mindless test, we should be developing our own hoops for our students and providing them with springboards to attain their own potentials. Widening our curriculum and narrowing our standards to “essential life skills” seems plausible and inclusive for all students.