American Education with Good People Poor Results
What has to Change for America to Compete Globally
Sep 18, 2009
Most school educators feel there is little they can do to fix this problem. The difficulty is the system itself. It has so many groups making demands that the educators are stymied. Their hands are tied by plitics and they are trapped by the systems rewarding misconduct.
There is an old expression, children live what they have learned. Even the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament reminds parents to raise a child in the proper way and he or she will not depart from the teaching. The New Testament goes one step further and places responsibilities on parents and children for what the child learns and practices and becomes. It is a family concern, but parentally driven outcome. Could this work in the present mess.
An Old Theme is New
From an educational perspective it is not surprising children learn what they are shown. That is effectively the way the current educational system is structured. The current American educational model is only slowly changing from the intellectually based approach to one which encompasses the entire person. The change is glacial from either Greek or Chinese models from over 2000 years ago:
- About 1790 Jean Rousseau published his observations on education in a book entitled Emile. He concluded that if the educational system were interesting the student would be motivated. The instructor should be able to motivate the student and keep the student interested.
- In the mid 1800s as the industrial revolution made a major imprint on the USA, social leaders concluded that one way to protect children from mutilation and death in the sweat shops and factories was with child labor laws. However, this meant that the children needed to be housed during the day. Therefore, publicly funded broad-based education began in some of the states, particularly Massachusetts.
- In the 1920s the educational community was split between traditional approaches and progressive approaches.
- In the late 1930s and early 1940s a multi-year study concluded that students that had socially oriented time and activities in their school structure did slightly better in college admissions.
- During the latter part of the 1970s onward, the educational community began a huge debate about appropriate content for the non-collegiate educational system.
In 2009, the idea of the content of an educational system has not been settled nor has the more thorny issue of who determines the content of the curriculum. Each "action group" wants to determine what everyone else should know. However, there is a growing consensus that the whatevver material ends up in the curriculum it must include more than intellectual learning. It must include the social and community involvement component if students are to be well rounded achievers.
Need Drives Performance but not Change
Since the process has been glacially slow, what has happened that changed the manner and the pace of the contemporary discussion. In reality, although it seems like the educational system has changed there is very little change. Here are some driving aspects that have changed not at all, or at least imperceptibly in most situations:
- The way materials are chosen for classroom use in the secondary environments.
- Granting of tenure to teachers that do not need tenure.
- The manner in which professional status is determined and earned.
- The way a teacher progresses up the professional ladder.
- The manner in which ideas are passed from profesors to students, or teachers to students.
- How students move through the system.
- The methods of keeping track of student success and progress.
If the system has not changed, what has? Only the delivery methodolgy. For instance, the educational framework remains the same even though the classes are online. Grades are distributed, coursework repeated or passed, professor ranks are the same, status is gained by publications (with some changes because of presentations), books are now electronic, and teaching is asynchronous online rather than in a brick and mortar classroom. The how of education is different, but the processes remain the same.
Feeling Better about Performing Worse
As a result, it does not seem that American students are doing better. . Interestingly though, American students feel better about their ability to compete in a global economy today than they did 20 years ago. Unfortunately, their scores in globalized testing indicate that they are performing worse than previously. Still the students feel better about their capabilities. Clearly there is a need to fix a system where feelings and not capabilities are the currency, if jobs are to remain available to the students currently in school. Additionally, since colleges tend to be the source of innovation for educational reform college professors should be able to be hired into secondary teaching jobs. Unfortunately most states require credentialing in order to teach. So it is possible to teach the future teachers how to teach, but not possible to teach their students. This type of logic is what helps create the problem. What originally was a good idea to ensure competency for teachers has become a limitation on innovation. Something has to be done to change the educational system.
Parents must demand change
The change must create a standard core of classes that provide a combination of skills and personal development allowing graduating students to enter colleges or to begin to compete successfully in the global market. It is time parents require politicians and educatoion policy makers to develop a curriculum teaching success skills, technical skills, people skills, and core decision making skills based on an integrated values approach. It is time to stop penalizing the students to satisfy some political or cultural agenda.
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