I am not a teacher, I have worked in education in some form for about 15 years. I took 9 years out of public employment to raise my kids and even then I was a substitute teacher a few times.
I have heard people fuss and complain about schools, kids, teachers, parents - on and on. None of the complaints directed at any particular group ever rang true to me because I have always believed that institutions reflect the greater community they reside in along with all the individual entities that make up the community.
If I think - really think, about how change is effected, problems solved, from this starting point - I feel so overwhelmed. How can change happen if each entity is not moved somehow?
Maybe the reverse is true. Maybe each little change affects the entire community. That approach seems a lot more hopeful to me. That means any piece of the puzzle that I come into contact with can be a part of a positive or negative change. There is hope in that and also accountability. That means that every single interaction I have, somehow creates change and that brings everything down to individual responsibility.
It means that my actions and interactions need to be thoughtful and intentional. It means that not only am I my brother’s keeper but each of us is the keeper of our entire local community which has it’s interaction with the rest of the global community. It means that I can’t blame anyone else for the state of the world - I can only make my individual actions count.
That makes sense for the individual. If the entire community thinks like me - has the same belief system, and is willing to take the same level of responsibility then we will move as a group in a particular direction. The reality is, individuals have their own agenda’s, their own belief systems, and their own ideas about what is the best direction for a community to move. How to we reconcile the different views and not end up simply sitting still or moving backwards and forwards instead of making progress?
If you don’t think our thinking is splintered - look at your community. How many churches are there? If we are unable to unite in our belief system when in most communities in this area, it all revolves around a single book then….well, you can see the difficulty.
The catalyst for this whole discussion was a website called 2 Million Minutes. There is a dvd you can order and I am planning on purchasing one. There are lesson plans and clips of the making of the video. The premise is that our young people have about 2 million minutes to spend in high school. How will their two million minutes stack up result wise to students in China or India. There is an exam to take to see how you stack up.
The exam challenge is the brainchild of Bob Compton after hearing a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education “We have nothing to learn from education systems in Third World countries, “Much less a Third World country that lacks freedom of speech.” when he viewed the Two Million Minutes video.
The exam “is a shortened and greatly simplified version of the multi-day proficiency test that every 10th grader in India must pass to go on to the 11th grade.”
Go.Read.Think.
As a part of the global community, what are our priorities? What are we willing to sacrifice to get there? What are the consequences?
3 comments ↓
Provocative thoughts. What do we do in our own “community” even as pluralistic as it is? What is our purpose in public education? Are we forming citizens or consumers? What do we see as the public good? How do we go about fostering the sort of democratic situation at which you hint? In some sense I think the video (I only looked briefly at the website) ironically touts education as training for future workers/consumers. The irony for me is I hear you saying “community” which implies for me a more local democratic self-governing citizenry (yet globally aware) and not the corrupting of such “virtues” by unfettered big business and the proliferation of which it seems we are often made to be a part. Just a few wayward thoughts.
Here is where I get overwhelmed. We expect kids to value others, to be responsible and accountable, and to value the fruits of their labor. Yet we live in a society that values “stuff and more stuff”, that produces children and then expects strangers to raise them, first in day care and then in the public school system.
They come to us wanting to hurry up and get “out” and start pursuing their own “stuff” and they want to get the most stuff for the least amount of effort possible. If they for some reason come through their educational experience, unable to obtain a lot of stuff they have no value. It seems to me that the way the educational system is set up we are living this huge lie and that most of these kids see through it from the start and know going in that there is no way they can come out and get a lot of “stuff”.
Consequently, the whole time they spend in education is of little value to them and they spend a whole lot of time being angry because they don’t feel very valuable themselves.
If you can’t pass the test and you can’t make a lot of money - you can’t be happy and what is the point?
We keep trying to perpetuate something that doesn’t even really exist.
I don’t agree with everything on that website, but it seems to me that we spend the biggest part of our time in education trying to cram everyone into the same shape holes and in the process we lose individuality, creativity, and hope and without those then there is no drive to move ahead.
How many minutes do we have if we live to be 65 years old?
What do you remember the most about high school? Were there some defining moments when something you learned turned on a light in your head and stuck with you to this day?
Do we give our kids any of those kind of moments? I know this all sounds very negative but it is how I feel. We don’t tell them that we want them to do well because they might be the one to find a cure for cancer, or a way to increase food production in some country where people are starving (which according to some could be this one eventually) or write a book that will have a profound effect on someone. We tell them we want them to do well so they can get out of school and make lots of money to have lots of stuff.
aaarg - now I’m depressed. I may have to go shopping and get some stuff!
I agree. It all becomes quite depressing. I think part of the problem is that the voracious modern market (the stuff producer) has eaten up our “social institution” called public education. This deserves a sit down talk at some point!
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