WE SHOULD LOOK AT THIS DIFFERENTLY!
When is everyone going to wake-up and realize the status quo is not good enough anymore! We'll ask the question again (and again and again): Why do we, time after time and issue after issue, keep going back to failed policies and political philosophies that DO NOT work?
Answer: Because that’s the easy thing to do.
The hard part of education reform is addressing what we teach in programs like Head Start and schools across the nation, how we teach it, and how we measure our progress. This is a much scarier proposition for school administrators and politicians because it requires some serious soul searching and some significant changes.
The brutal truth is this: It doesn’t matter how much money you spend or how many early education programs you modify or how many qualified teachers you recruit or how many charter schools you open. Every effort toward education reform will fail without a complete overhaul of our misguided curriculum; a change in how it is presented; a reevaluation of what we value in education; and how we define what success actually means. We will also continue to fail if we have zero understanding how our kids think.
In his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, renowned Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner suggests there is a collection of intelligences that exists in each of us. Because everyone exhibits these intelligences on various levels, each individual has a distinctive cognitive profile.
Gardner initially identified seven intelligences: verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal (Gardner later concluded naturalist intelligence should be added to the list and insinuated two others may be worthy of inclusion: spiritual intelligence and existential intelligence). According to Gardner, the child who masters math is not necessarily more intelligent overall than the child who struggles with it; rather, s/he is stronger in that particular intelligence.
We love this guy. The conventional American method of assessing what is and is not “intelligent” is insane. Have you ever seen the "standard psychometric instruments" we use to test people's “level” of intelligence in this country? The test comes in these black briefcases and the contents inside the briefcase are an absolute joke. Are we really so simple in this country that we think intelligence and individual capabilities can be evaluated by items that fit into a 10” x 15” piece of luggage? Traditional IQ tests and our current educational assessment tests fail miserably to adequately assess the wide array of aptitude each human being distinctly exhibits.
Okay, many of us at 1787 may be a little defensive on this point, but we know from firsthand experience that this is true. Recently we read a SAT prep question — “If there are 8 x 1012 hydrogen molecules in a volume of 4 x 104 cubic centimeters, what is the average number of hydrogen molecules per cubic centimeter?” — and immediately went into the fetal position.
Many of us consistently received horrendous scores on these tests and quite frankly we're still ticked off about it. Maybe we can’t tell you within three seconds how much faster Train A got to the station than Train B, but we always knew we ware smart in unique ways. Most of us never understood why we had to suffer through advanced equations in high school when we could be writing short stories, studying history, or learning a foreign language.
Most of our kids experience this feeling every single school day. Our across-the-board approach to curriculum is a fossilized tactic and an enormous contributor to our kids being bored and unprepared. Those who have interests in careers that don’t require advanced science or math sit in class questioning what the heck any of this has to do with their futures ... and they get bored, disenchanted, and simply leave.
We have gotten to the point where much of what happens in our schools doesn’t even resemble education at all. Somewhere down the line we forfeited vital knowledge for trivial test scores. A high school sophomore recently told members of our staff that most of her school day in the Spring semester revolves around memorizing test questions and learning testing strategies.
Ugh.
Hell on earth is to sit in an uncomfortable chair, memorizing material that you know has zero relevance to your life’s ambition. High-stakes testing has reduced American education to nothing more than a regurgitation of facts that will be forgotten the minute the bell rings.
Real-world problem solving, deep deliberation, and critical thinking are out — right and wrong answers to questions that out-of-touch administrators deem important are in. This approach is beyond lazy and completely strangles the construction of knowledge. What a wasted opportunity and what a waste of everyone’s time.
Of course, there are certain skills everyone needs to be exposed to. Math, for example, is a critical element in learning how to formulate complex thought, and its fundamentals are an absolute necessity. Certainly, everyone needs to master basic arithmetic, multiplication, division, decimals, fractions, percentages, ratios, probability, exponents and how to calculate area, volume and surface area. But the fact remains that we have advanced in the preparation for a chosen few but have still not learned how to properly empower those who continue to be left behind. As a four-year college education has increasingly become the be-all and end-all in America, we seem to completely miss the immense value of high-quality vocational schools, junior colleges, on-the-job training, and apprenticeships — which are often the best ways to train (and retrain) for many of today’s jobs.
Forget more money; it’s our entire paradigm that must change.
When asked near the end of his life what schools should emphasize in the teaching process, Albert Einstein said, “Accumulation of material should not stifle the student’s independence.”
Children don’t develop in a straight line. Therefore, our focus must shift from blanket education to a more personalized approach. Embracing individualized learning styles enables children to learn the most advantageous way possible for their aptitude. Kids will be far more engaged if they learn material relevant to their individual skills, interests and aspirations — material actually relevant to their futures. When students are exposed to meaningful material, they will be able (and much more willing) to tackle more rigorous, academically challenging curriculum.
It may seem that this approach would take a tremendous amount of additional money, time and effort, but that’s not necessarily true. Switzerland’s dynamic educational system provides an excellent example. Switzerland has created a system that embraces innovative thinking and open learning, ensuring their position among the global elite in education.
A key element of the Swiss system is the student’s ability to choose their educational path according to their abilities and interests. The initial decision is made early, but students can alter their course if they choose. To begin, students attend primary and lower secondary school, which provide a basic general education as well as encourages a balanced relationship with social, personal, and technical abilities. Then, the students enter the upper secondary level, which offers a “dual” vocational education and training system. If the vocational path is chosen, students can enhance their education by learning both in school and within a workplace setting. Over 70 percent of Swiss students choose to participate in this Vocational Education and Training (VET) program.
A report called Gold Standard: The Swiss Vocational Education and Training System from the Center on International Education Benchmarking explains that the VET program “prepares a broad cross-section of students including high achievers for careers in a range of occupations — high-tech, human service, health, as well as traditional trades and crafts, so white-collar as well as blue-collar.” The report also describes how, in Switzerland, the entire country takes ownership of the educational process, with around 30 percent of Swiss companies participating in the VET program: “The Swiss VET system is well supported by employers who see it as their obligation to help prepare young people for productive and meaningful employment.
Apprenticeships also make economic sense for employers, providing them with an incentive to continue to participate in the system. The apprenticeships provide hands-on and applied learning opportunities, giving students real work responsibilities with plenty of coaching and adult support. Small and large companies, state of the art factories, insurance agencies, banks, hospitals, retail stores, and childcare centers host 16- to 19-year-old apprentices who serve customers, work on complex machines, carry out basic medical procedures, and advise investors – in short, they do everything an entry level employee would do, albeit under the wings of credentialed trainers within the company.” The final step for Swiss students is the Tertiary level, or higher education, where students again choose between technical or vocational schools, or higher university degrees which include universities of art and music as well as universities of teacher education.
It’s surely no coincidence that Switzerland tops the list on the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report in the categories of Basic Skills, Skills of Current Workforce, Extent of Staff Training, Skillset of Graduates, Digital Skills Among Active Population, Active Labor Market Policies, Workers’ Right, and Government’s Ensuring Policy Stability. It’s also no coincidence that, according to the United Nations’ World Happiness Report, Switzerland is the third happiest country in the world, behind only Finland and Denmark. Interestingly enough, Denmark and Finland also hold the #1 and #2 spots in NJ MED’s 2021 World Best Education Systems. Hmmm….
Speaking of Finland, the country has a truly unified school system, where kids stay at the same school until they are sixteen. Then, Finnish education is divided into two systems — vocational and academic. There are special programs where adults receive additional training, all students learn to speak English, free hot meals are provided to all students, and free health and psychological services are offered to all students. When asked how many children don’t complete school in her city, one Finnish school official said there are so few that she could “tell you their names if you want.”
Teachers in Finland have wide professional discretion and autonomy, and have the freedom to teach how they want. The only external testing is done solely on a sampling basis and is designed to provide information on the functioning of the overall school system. Therefore, it is the teachers’ responsibility to regularly assess their students using national assessment guidelines. Students are expected to take an active role in their learning, and, in upper grades, even design their own individualized programs.
The Preamble of Finland’s National Core Curriculum for Basic Education states,
The learning environment must support the pupil’s growth and learning. It must be physically, psychologically, and socially safe, and must support the pupil’s health. The objective is to increase pupils’ curiosity and motivation to learn, and to promote their activeness, self-direction, and creativity by offering interesting challenges and problems. The learning environment must guide pupils in setting their own objectives and evaluating their own actions. The pupils must be given the chance to participate in the creation and development of their own learning environment.
We can no longer expect half-measures and incremental ideas to work in systems that have collapsed; rather, we must embrace an unprecedented full and fundamental restructuring. It’s way past time that we move to crisis mode and thoroughly alter the way we approach the education of our children to prevent an all-out disaster.
Simply appropriating more funding for failed programs is not going to cut it anymore. It’s time to make substantial and sustaining improvements in the way we educate our children, and boldly approach the challenges from a completely new perspective, making our resolution both wide and deep for every child. …and that has little to do with more money.