I love TED. I just listened to the fabulous Liz Coleman, president of Bennington College, speak on reinventing liberal arts education. She speaks of the professionalization of liberal arts education with the expert as the sole model of intellectual accomplishment. We break subject matter into smaller pieces, narrowing our focus, despite evidence of interconnectedness.
Her list of complaints about university education: oversimplifications of civic engagement; idealization of the expert; fragmentation of knowledge; emphasis on technical mastery; and neutrality.
In other words, while the world falls apart, efforts at saving it are considered naive and unprofessional.
Meanwhile, the big questions aren’t seriously pursued by universities, but they are vigorously pursued by fundamentalists. Great.
Nowhere is the result of the university disconnect seen more prominently than in the Department of Education.
Yesterday Education Week blogged about 46 states agreeing to jump on board with nationalizing grade level standards. From the perspective of the current system, it makes sense. Why have 50 different versions of the same thing?
But who is challenging the underlying reasoning of the standards themselves?
While No Child Left Behind is strengthened, a nation of teachers witness the systematic creation and destructive results of “behind.”
Parents and grandparents deal with the stress of young children faced with long academic days, more homework, and 3 weeks of testing every April.
But they are all in a Catch-22.
If they aren’t supporting standards, then they aren’t with the new Obama program. Aren’t they up to the challenge?
But we aren’t just looking at standards. We’re looking at standardization of children. As if people are standardized. As if people all learn the same things at the same rates at the same time. As if these standards represent the real learning required to make it in this world.
Because teachers must teach to the standards, any deviation into creativity risks that they aren’t doing their job. And their job is directly correlated to the test scores of their students. And those results are soon going to be a matter of public record.
But their protests are discounted. Don’t they want to be accountable? Don’t they think that children should be working to standards? What are they afraid of? Can’t make the grade themselves?
My hairdresser refused to send her 5-year-old to a kindergarten that expects full-day attendance emphasizing academics, with one hour a day on mathematics and then homework.
Although she’s not a Christian fundamentalist, her child’s going to a private, relatively-inexpensive Christian school because at least they let 5-year-olds play.
I am a total Obama supporter. I think Arne Duncan is exceptional. But the Obamas and Duncan are wildly successful products of the current industrial system. As fabulous as they are, they can’t see beyond the current system. They need our help.
Where are the protesters?
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