There is an interesting discussion of the responsibility for creation of market value (i.e. ability to get a job) in every child to public education, as opposed to the intention to help children learn how to learn, how to be inquisitive, how to investigate, and how to be a world citizen. Kirsten says that learning has become unmoored from the institution called education. Except for those who have no options, she sees the system we still offer being left behind.

Steve asks Kirsten how anyone can get out of the industrialization of education with No Child Left Behind, and now, Race to the Top, sustaining the focus on testing and standardization across all demographics.

Here is the link to the great resource in this effort some call ed reform, and a contributor to the evolution of a new system of learning: http://www.futureofeducation.com/

Many thanks to Steve and Kirsten!

Cevin’s topic is meant to be a comparison, not an analogy, based on an awareness of the damage that is done by the majority of public schools on the majority of students. Loss of the key cognitive skills of evaluation, analysis, and creativity counts among the most egregious wounds inflicted. Add to that list the near-total denial of any opportunity to realize the pleasure of learning, the indoctrination into the cult of “average,” and the branding of “unteachable” placed on anyone forced to rebel against the conformity the system expects, and you have an outrageous failure of a system paid for by tax dollars.

But, as you illustrate, many do not recognize that damage. If helping you to meet people is what you expect from your schools, then I am sure the abolishment of public schools would make no sense.

But do you think that there is something deeper at work here? Ever notice that no one speaks of the inherent mindset of adults with regard to children these days? For decades it has seemed very confrontational.

Does anyone you know ask you if you think children are born with intelligence? Who among our networks is reassessing their roles as adults in raising children and thinking they could do more good to stand aside than to keep them tied to their hips? Why is it children do not play away from adults for hours at a time?

Much as I would like to think it’s the system and politics and pay scales, I am thinking we need to go to a more fundamental level of change before we will see progress. What do you think?

Alvin Toffler said it well in 1970 in Future Shock:

Mass education was the ingenious machine constructed by industrialism to produce the kinds of adults it needed … the solution was an educational system that, in its very structure, simulated this new world … the regimentation, lack of individualization, the rigid systems of seating, grouping, grading and marking, the authoritarian style of the teacher—are precisely those that made mass public education so effective as an instrument of adaptation for its time and place.

If you look over at the Solutions page you may see much of what you envision. The technology of today, combined with the growing transparency of borders the world over, make for a rich opportunity to learn according to your passion and interests. In the end, every person alive can learn as they need and want information, putting to full use all of their cognitive skills and in the process building a truly global network of co-learners.