Education Reform LO9300

Pete Heineman (PETE@ccs.unomaha.edu)
Wed, 21 Aug 1996 09:22:15 -0500 (CDT)

Replying to LO9233 --

I know that we have ventured down this path before, but Perhaps Joan
can provide additional enlightenment on how she proposes to reform
education. Joan posts:

"IMO our schools are creating a lot of unemployable people, people who
are a detriment to themselves as well as to any business who hires
them. Since most of our foreign competitors do not have a similar
problem, it would seem that we will suffer competitively unless we
start doing a much better job preparing our children for work."

I don't agree that other nations _don't_ have similar problems.

Just a few questions come to mind:

How do we prepare a "child" for a dynamic, possibly virtual
work place?
Are you proposing that we "track" children into professions
or place them into apprenticeships? If so, how are those
placements determined?
Do we prepare our children only for a life of work? Is this
the principle responsibility of education?
Do we teach our children to pursue a pension instead of pursuing
their passion (Dennis Waitley)?

OK. Unfare and biased questions.

How schools should teach has been the basis of numerous texts
Gardner defines schools as "...institutions that place together
individuals who have not known one another, to work on tasks that
appear more or less remote from the operation of the remainder of
society." The mission of the early years of school is to introduce
all students to the basic literacies. The modern secular school
seeks, according to Gardner, three kinds of knowledge:

1) National sophistication - to master the major written
codes of the _culture_ and to learn to use them effectively.
2) Concepts within the discipline - important concepts,
frameworks, key ideas, and examples.
3) Forms of exposition and reasoning within the discipline -
to appreciate the different kinds and status of knowledge
across the various disciplines.

Going beyond simple literacy, a further mission of the schools is to
transmit concepts, networks of concepts, conceptual frameworks, and
disciplinary forms of reasoning to their students. The curriculum,
writes Gardner, ought to go beyond a rehersal of facts and introduce
students to the ways of thinking used in different disciplines.

The challenge to educators is to 1) introduce often difficult or
counterintuitive notions to the students, 2) make certain that this
new knowledge is synthesized with earlier ideas if they are
congruent, and 3) ensure that "newer disciplinary content supplants
previously held conceptions or stereotypes that would in some way
collide with or undermine the new forms of knowledge."

Joan continues:
"For those who are looking for solutions, Chicago's experience sounds
as if it may be a positive step."

What works for Chicago may not work for other school districts. The
fact that the principle stake-holders took responsibility for the
direction of the educational system _is_ noteworthy.

What disturbs me most about postings suggesting that we educate for
employment is the restrictive implications it has on the human growth
potential. Educating for understanding can come about only if
students integrate the prescholastic with the scholastic and
disciplinary ways of knowing. It has been my experience that, all
things being equal, individuals with a "well-rounded" education tend
to be ? (can't think of a word that won't get flammed).

IMHO most important to me are students who possess genuine
understanding of the major disciplines and areas of knowledge. What
may be missing are contexts in which the deployment of the
disciplines makes sense. We are not dealing with a deliberate failure
of the educational system , but an unwitting one. "If we can find
ways in which to help students synthesize their several forms of
knowing, we should be in a position to educate students for
understanding." Perhaps Alan Bloom was correct when he stated that
students lack a sense of direction, a sense of community, a sense of
value.

I've rambled on too long. IMHO educate for understanding, not
merely for a job.

Pete
--

Peter L. Heineman, Manager of Contract Training
University of Nebraska at Omaha
College of Continuing Studies
1313 Farnam Street
Omaha, NE 68182-0335
(402) 595-2340 FAX (402) 595-2345
Internet: pheineman@unomaha.edu


Education is a training in the middle way
between the dogmatic belief in absolutes
and the cynical negation of all belief.

Benjamin Barber

-- 

"Pete Heineman" <PETE@ccs.unomaha.edu>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>