Teaching and learning get a lot of attention in the country. There has been a concerted effort in the last 30 plus years to cast a pall of uncertainty on the process and to infer that somehow today’s students aren’t getting the best of what they deserve. From “Nation at Risk” in the 1980′s followed by No Child Left Behind a decade ago and now Race to the Top we have had politicians of all stripes insisting we need to improve. Conveniently no one seems to notice that it is not our educational system that has put our nation at risk but our policy makers who have shipped all our jobs to the Pacific Rim. As important as those issues are they are not the focus of what is on my mind tonight.
Education comes from the Latin word, “educere” which means literally to lead. Are we really teaching our children to lead? I believe that the answer ought to be yes. Free and public education in this country was designed to create an informed electorate that could foster the republic. The current educational trend foist upon us from the statehouse and the federal government is to provide a “cookie cutter” sameness that precludes thinking. The test driven agenda does not educate at all. Its only real purpose seems to be the confounding of real education.
To be sure we as educators must always be reflective practitioners who regularly examine both our content and our methods. We must always seek new learning and look for new ways to guide young minds to think. Children need not be told or taught what to think, but how to think. The testing agenda produces sameness not excellence. I’m a product of both private and public education and all of my teachers encouraged me to think. They formed me and informed me. My education was as much about transformation as it was about comprehension of concepts and facts. Many of the schools I was educated in didn’t have the latest gadgets but instead had the inspiration to think and to think differently than my parents and even my teachers. We do our students and our society a tremendous disservice if we do not give the gift of education to our students.
Our country and our world need learners and leaders who will inspire and respond to a changing world.