STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 20 February 2013

[Demeter]

4. What a REAL Paradigm Shift in Education Would Look Like

http://www.alternet.org/education/what-real-paradigm-shift-education-would-look?akid=10072.227380.06n5uK&rd=1&src=newsletter796377&t=20&paging=off

Long before corporate America began its assault on public schooling, American education was in trouble. Educators were, however, increasingly aware of the problems and were working on them. When Bill Gates, Jeb Bush, Mike Bloomberg, Arne Duncan,Michelle Rhee, and other big name non-educators took over, that worked stopped.

What I want people to understand is that the backbone of education — the familiar math-science-language arts-social studies “core curriculum” — is deeply, fundamentally flawed. No matter the reform initiative, there won’t be significant improvement in American education until curricular problems are understood, admitted, addressed, and solved.

Few want to hear that. Reformers are sure America’s schools would be fine if teachers just worked harder and smarter, and reformers are sure the teachers would do that if merit pay programs made them compete for cash. They seem incapable of understanding that classroom teachers are doing something so complicated and difficult that even the best of them are hanging on by their fingernails. If they knew how to do better, they’d be doing it. Would surgeons operate differently if they were paid more? Would commercial airline pilots make softer landings if they made more money? Would editorial writers write better editorials if their salaries were raised?

Teachers are doing the best they can with the curriculum they’ve been given. Here (in regrettably abstract language) is the curricular problem at the top of my list:

Change is in the nature of things; it is inevitable. Human societies either adaptto change or die. The traditional core curriculum delivers existingknowledge, but adapting to an unknown future requires new knowledge. Newknowledge is created as relationships are discovered between parts ofreality not previously thought to be related. The arbitrary walls betweenschool subjects, and the practice of studying them in isolation from eachother, block the relating process essential to knowledge creation....