Here鈥檚 the assignment: Describe an educated person. Include the academic knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes or dispositions that would, for you, clearly define any person as well educated. Now, let鈥檚 figure out how to make sure we all fit that description. All of us, not just a chosen few. How will we get it done? Maybe the very discussion will help us clarify our sense of purpose.
Instead of constantly striving to redefine and reset in light of new knowledge and exponentially expanding demands of a fast-changing world, we have, perhaps too often, spent our time and energy engaging in philosophical fisticuffs.
Visualize this: Two psychologists climb into a ring. It鈥檚 the age of progressive education. They put on their gloves and start punching. One is Edward Thorndike. The other is John Dewey. In a philosophical boxing match, Thorndike declares that schools should be 鈥渟tructured around the methods of industrial management.鈥� To him, they are just a delivery vehicle. Teach it and then evaluate whether the students have learned it. Dewey, on the other hand, counters that schools should cultivate a lifelong love of learning and develop the qualities of democratic citizenship. Who won the fight? Who should have won? Are the fists still flying?
Read more in Chapter 14 of Twenty-One Trends
Somehow, the system and a plethora of politicians have staked their sacred honor on a debate that helped shape schools for an Industrial Age. How much more mileage can we get from either-or when the answer is likely some reasonable version of this-and?
The upshot? We have growing numbers of thoughtful educators, determined to get students ready for the future, constrained by a mentality, a schedule, and an infrastructure of another time.
Employers and civil society are demanding people who can think, reason, and problem solve. Yet, as a society, as institutions, as politicians, we all but refuse to apply those skills to solving our own multiplying problems. Purpose and substance get lost in a game of win and lose.
Of course, many of our students are moving on. They鈥檙e already linked to a world of information and ideas, using interactive technologies and forming a new system of learning鈥攁ny time, any place, any pace, and any way. Some ask, 鈥淗ow will what I鈥檓 being asked to learn in school be helpful to me in my life, today and tomorrow?鈥� If we can鈥檛 answer that question, we鈥檇 better rethink the why, what, and how of education.
We鈥檙e well into the 21st century. Isn鈥檛 it time we led a spirited community or national conversation that zeroes in on the purposes of education? Granted, science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math (STEAM) are important, but aren鈥檛 they means rather than ends in themselves?
What are the purposes of education? That should be a question we鈥檙e still trying to answer as the earth makes its final turn. For the sake of discussion, let me suggest a few: citizenship (of a family, school, community, country, world); employability (not just training for a job but the multitude of things we need to know and be able to do to be employable and to be good citizens); the opportunity to live interesting lives (the more we know, the more interesting life becomes); releasing ingenuity that is already there (which means we鈥檒l be expected to discover and develop the interests, skills, talents, and abilities of our students); and stimulating imagination, creativity, and inventiveness.
A few years ago, after speaking about trends and the future to a large community gathering at the city hall in Intendente Alvear, La Pampa, Argentina, the host said, 鈥淥ur students have a gift for you.鈥� One of those students, Florencia Fernandez, embraced her guitar and sang 鈥淭o Begin Again.鈥�
Let鈥檚 take Florencia鈥檚 advice and start a fresh conversation about education that will get our students ready for life in a Global Knowledge/Information Age, even an Age of Knowledge Creation and Breakthrough Thinking. It could be among the most exhilarating, memorable, and influential things we ever do. In a world of exponential change, time鈥檚 wasting.