Reading Reflection: The Flat World and Education Ch 1-3
If I were involved in developing education policy, this book would certainly make me squirm. In the first few chapters alone, there is damning evidence of how outdated and unequitable the American school system is and has become. As a math teacher, the effects of this antiquated system are abundantly clear. It is well known that the good ol’ U.S.A. outsources a large percentage of STEM-related jobs to other countries and, despite the ‘best efforts’ of the politicians controlling public educations, America has consistently been ranked in the 20’s for the last few decades. For Americans, the world is certainly becoming flat as opportunities to climb in STEM related fields are more and more being sent outside of our borders. As poor as the picture is when comparing America internationally, the issue becomes even more visible when you look internally. Literacy rates, standardized test scores, and discipline rates paint a vivid picture of how the color of your skin, the money in your pocket, and the state of your yard all influence your opportunities as a student. Those opportunities as student snowball their way into tremendous differences in higher education and career possibilities. For a nation founded on the premise that all men are created equal, our public education system seems to send quite the contrary message. One point Hammond makes that struck me is that the “politicization” of American education has has created this sort of pendulum effect on our systems of education. With power changes in the American government happening at least twice a decade, American education has been an evershifting landscape for the last few decades. Every President seems to feel the need to leave their fingerprint on the education system. This is evident when you speak with veteran teachers about Common Core. Regardless of their opinion, positive or negative, many will note its heavy similarity to the education system of the 1980s. As we shift from one educational perspective to the next, our country has slipped further and further behind. One unfortunate side-effect of our swinging educational ideologies is that we never really get to see the long term effects of a system. These systems are designed as k-12 systems. When we change systems midway through, it takes several years for the students in the middle to settle in. As unpleasant as No Child Left Behind was, we barely had it long enough for a single set of students to fully complete it. Common Core has only been around a few years but people are already clamoring to tear it down, we might not get to see a full set of students progress though the system, let alone several populations of fully Common Core educated students. Regardless of one’s opinion on any particular system, this is clearly a poor way to judge the effectiveness of that systems design. Good or bad, we seem prone to running from a system before it can set roots. So, I believe one of the first steps in fixing this problem is to establish consistency. Which may be hard, given the frequent shift of power in our country. This would benefit all stakeholders. Parents would remain familiar with classroom techniques. Any math teacher has heard a parent complain that math is no longer taught the same way it was when they were in school. Teachers would not need to stress re-learning their job every decade. Students would benefit from pedagogical strategies they learned in 2nd grade up in 12th grade. Consistency paves the way for educational acceleration. One important caveat, consistency is not stagnation. Education must continue to evolve with the changing world. We must instill 21st Century SKills and digital literacy in our students. We must do more than teach them to pass tests. We need to create lifelong learners with a passion for the future. As a teacher, much of this is over my head. I don’t control federal policy or state funding. What I can impact is the students in my classroom and the teachers I work with. For right now, that is a large enough task.
0 Comments
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |