General Motors stock is selling for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee. Armed with that urgency, experts and policymakers are turning back the education clock to the 1970s, those golden years when self-esteem, the whole child, and our current state of academic bankruptcy were born.
We were almost headed in the right direction for about five minutes. The federal No Child Left Behind Act, with all its faults鈥攁nd its faults are legion鈥攑roperly refocused schools on academic content and fundamental skills like reading. Unfortunately, NCLB promptly plunged off the testing deep end, taking its credibility with it. Now, right on schedule, here comes the education pendulum, hurtling toward the other policy extreme.
Like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his invocation of 9/11, education reformers exploit the refrain 鈥�21st century,鈥� as in 鈥�21st-century skills,鈥� 鈥�21st-century global competition,鈥� or 鈥�21st-century bridge to sell you.鈥� Not that there鈥檚 anything wrong with preparing kids for the 21st century. I stopped using parchment and quill pens in my classroom months ago. But garbing recycled bad ideas in the new century can鈥檛 help us, especially when our real problem is that most students haven鈥檛 mastered the skills that mattered in the last century, and that will continue to matter, like reading and writing.
Back when the dawning millennium first had experts atwitter, the Business Roundtable of my home state, Vermont, circulated a depicting what heightened 鈥渨orldwide competition鈥� would demand of 21st-century graduates. The group foresaw a new age when carpenters would 鈥渋nterpret detailed blueprints and diagrams,鈥� work with building materials, and estimate costs, as opposed to, presumably, just randomly nailing objects together, which is what the experts seemed to think 20th-century carpenters did. Future nurses would, apparently for the first time, have tasks requiring 鈥渃ommunication with patients, families, and doctors,鈥� while also developing 鈥渇lexibility,鈥� observations that could only have been made by someone who had never met a nurse. Farmers鈥� innovative skills would include, according to the roundtable, 鈥渉erd management鈥� and 鈥渁nimal husbandry.鈥� They would also study something novel called agronomy.
My Boy Scout troop awarded animal-husbandry merit badges back in 1962. Vermont鈥檚 state agricultural college has been offering agronomy courses since its founding in 1865.
Fast-forwarding to the present, boosters cite a in which 88 percent of Americans agreed that schools should teach 鈥�21st-century skills.鈥� How else would you expect most people to respond? No, I support not preparing children for the future?
The question isn鈥檛 whether students need an appropriate education, but what reformers mean by an appropriate education. The has compiled a typical reform vision for the future. The trouble is it looks an awful lot like the equally visionary past that鈥檚 plagued schools for 30 years. For starters, they鈥檙e reviving 鈥渋nterdisciplinary themes,鈥� which 1980s restructurers gushed would teach students how their knowledge was connected, even as they also preached that schools were too concerned with 鈥渃ontent.鈥� Inconveniently, you can鈥檛 connect what you know if you don鈥檛 know much.
Garbing recycled bad ideas in the new century can鈥檛 help us, especially when our real problem is that most students haven鈥檛 mastered the skills that mattered in the last century, and that will continue to matter, like reading and writing.
This is a lesson still lost on interdisciplinarians, who continue to rave that the principal task of public education is making 鈥渞eal-world essential connections鈥� between 鈥渂odies of knowledge鈥� kids have never been taught. They propose accomplishing this objective by focusing on 鈥渢hemes鈥� like 鈥済lobal awareness,鈥� where students employ 鈥�21st-century skills鈥� to 鈥渁ddress global issues鈥� as they learn about and from 鈥渋ndividuals representing diverse cultures, religions, and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue.鈥�
All this sounds very enlightened, and I鈥檓 all for being able to work with different kinds of people. I expect it of my students every day. But global awareness has too often meant talking about how we feel about other countries without actually knowing anything about them, including where to find them on a map. You can鈥檛 teach global awareness if you skip geography.
Boosters tell us the 21st century demands a new 鈥渓earning environment,鈥� in which students receive 鈥渉uman support鈥� and learn in 鈥渞elevant, real-world 21st-century contexts.鈥� As a human who鈥檚 worked in a school for a while, I recognize the recycled jargon of the 鈥渨hole child,鈥� unstructured, content-light, 1970s reform regime where teachers 鈥渇acilitate鈥� and children choose their own academic adventures. I鈥檝e seen the nonsense lurking behind buzzwords like 鈥渟ocial鈥� and 鈥渋nterpersonal鈥� skills. I鈥檝e witnessed the catastrophe when 鈥渁cademic and intellectual skills鈥� are displaced by 鈥渁ttitudinal, experiential, and social-emotional鈥� goals. It鈥檚 all code for how we got where we are today.
Reformers also tout 鈥渕ultiple measures of assessment,鈥� including projects and student portfolios. These are the same subjective, discredited connivances that for years have artfully masked the reality that too many students know too little. I doubt that fraction raps and feudalism cakes are how they assess students in Beijing.
Twenty-first century fans are often the same people who complain that schools today are 鈥渢oo dominated by academic achievement.鈥� They claim their version of education 鈥渆mphasizes deep understanding,鈥� rather than 鈥渟hallow knowledge鈥� like those old 20th-century schools.
I believe in understanding. But you can鈥檛 get there without slogging through the ancient knowledge that reformers have disparaged for years as 鈥渕ere facts.鈥� I agree there鈥檚 a profound gap between what most kids learn in school and what they need to know. But that gap doesn鈥檛 exist because we鈥檙e teaching the wrong things, except where our schools have clung to the folly that 21st-century reformers are resuscitating once more as the cutting edge.
Yes, some things have changed. Pluto鈥檚 no longer a planet, and kids need to know more about using computers than I do. But most of our students aren鈥檛 falling short because they lack a deep, new understanding. They鈥檙e failing because they鈥檙e too often uninterested in or unprepared for any understanding.
There鈥檚 nothing new about teaching kids to 鈥渢alk and write clearly.鈥� There鈥檚 nothing uniquely 21st century about 鈥渃reativity,鈥� 鈥渁nalysis,鈥� 鈥渋nterpretation,鈥� or 鈥減roblem-solving.鈥� But you can鈥檛 solve 鈥渕eaningful problems,鈥� which is how rose-colored reformers prescribe that 12-year-olds spend their class time, if you skip the fundamentals because they鈥檙e too tedious or too last century.
One typically ardent reformer urges that we 鈥済ive our students the education they need for their future, not the education we had in the past.鈥� If most students today were mastering a rigorous 20th-century education, the 21st century wouldn鈥檛 look as bleak as it does.
