Joan Pomo ended a recent note about the lack of preparation for college of
modern students with this staement:
"Keep in mind, these are just the kids who are in college at CSU - it
doesn't include all the kids that never even apply, or who go to two year
colleges first. As we get deeper into the information age, our primary
and high schools are failing us. Who will we have to hire in 10 years?
Thoughts?"
I think the question we are challenged to respond to is a bit different.
Consider that the per centage of age eligible young adults completing high
school is significantly higher that it was prior to WW II (and that we now
expect all to be graduating high school.) Similarly the portion of HS
graduates enterring college has increased dramatically along with our
expectation that colege should be completed. And it is true that we are
living in a world which has increased the amount of knowledge (and
training) that seems to be necessary for sucessful work experiences.
So the question I think we must answer is whether across the face of the
population at large we can expect a larger and larger portion to
sucessfully acquire the necessary level of learning, that is, are we all
capable enough? I know that this is not an easy question to ask or to try
to answer. But I think we need to grapple with it if we are to understand
where the problems lie in trying to "fix" our educational systems, and our
economy.
Marty Levine
martyML@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>