JTE - Images of Schools: 2020 Possible, Probable or Preferable?
Editorial
Images of Schools: 2020
Possible, Probable or
Preferable?
Lee Smalley
There is no need to belabor the point that all aspects of our school system need to reexamine their role and operation. Hardly a week goes by where there is not further proof that we have a school system inconsistent with our aspirations for ourselves or our country. This school system includes teacher education, teachers, students, administrators, school boards, parents, research institutions, governmental bodies and any other group or institution that impacts on the operation of our schools.
What are we going to do about the school as a helping
place?
What changes would come about if students, teachers,
parents and
administrators perceived schools as a helping place, not a
sorting
place? Studies continue to show that marking a misspelled word
wrong
and returning the paper days later, with no follow up or
corrective
action except for a lower grade, makes a mockery of instructional
strategy. Thus, the emphasis is on punishment rather than
instruction. "I
told you once," replaces understanding and empathy.
The awarding of a grade of "F" should be discarded for anyone below the age of legal alcohol consumption or voting. We should consider young people incompletes, not failures, and adjust our policies and procedures accordingly. We need to keep performance constant and vary the time for students to achieve. We should perform as the doctor or lawyer and not give up on our clients until after they do, and even then, reluctantly and sadly.
What are we going to do about the school as a democratic
place?
The vision of schools as a place to practice democratic
skills and
attitudes has either been dimmed or severely damaged by
autocratic practices in the classroom and in the
administrative offices. The traditional vertical hierarchy of
line and staff, with the Board of Education
on top and the teachers on the bottom (usually students are not
shown),
is based on the existence of an illiterate group who needs to
be directed by the elite who are selected or born to rule. These
conditions
existed once in the army and the church, but they do not exist
now in
American schools.
The organizational chart should not reflect a ranking of salaries but should indicate responsibilities and competencies with horizontal networking necessary to encourage cooperation (like quality circles) rather than separation. This chart should graphically display the school system, emphasizing the importance of teachers, where they are not on the bottom. Students need to practice democratic skills and attitudes through decision making in classes as well as in schools. Let us mirror the representative republic we want our citizens to understand and participate in.
What are we going to do about the teacher as director?
Teachers generally teach as they were taught, as well as
continuing
those techniques that seem to be consistent with peer approval
and support from administration and parents. Therefore, the
teacher as teller
continues far longer than is appropriate in this communication
age. We
have successfully rejected the radio, telephone and television as
an instructional device and are doing the same thing with the
computer. We
are increasingly using computers to teach about themselves and
not using
them to teach history, geography, etc. Teachers still stand
and talk
while students sit and listen. Teachers work too hard during
class time
and students are too passive. Class time should be for
students to
test, reform and remodel information gained outside the
classroom, increasingly through an expert system. These systems
will be interactive,
portable and accessible in shopping malls, homes, and schools.
Teachers should let the technical devices do the easy work- transferring information-and leave the more difficult task of developing generalizations and providing a social context to the information learned to the teacher-student.
What are we going to do about recognizing the importance of
talent?
Most educators assign 100 percent of success or failure to
environmental factors: college teachers blame high school,
middle school, and
elementary school teachers and parents. Nowhere does the role of
inherited talent seem to play a part. If the only tool you have
is a hammer,
then all problems will look like nails! Yet in recent studies
of identical twins raised apart conducted at the University of
Minnesota researchers suggest that 60 percent of a
person's personality
characteristics such as learning style, risk taking,
information-processing, extroversion or introversion and
empathy are all extremely
important in determining behavior. Yet, those traits are usually
attributed only to learned behavior that can be changed or
modified by teaching, whereas quite the contrary seems to be
true.
Teachers should be helping students discover their talents and designing activities to encourage their strengths, rather than running an "animal" school where all the animals have to fly, climb, dig, run, jump and hide.
What are we going to do about teaching higher order thinking
skills?
Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain should have a
large gap
between the lowest three levels (knowledge, comprehension and
application) and the highest three levels (analysis, synthesis
and evaluation).
The lowest three are product-oriented with one right answer
- best
taught by telling. The highest three are process-oriented,
with no
"right" answer - best taught through problem solving.
Each subject and grade level should have at least one activity that goes into the higher order thinking skills area. Most curricula are based upon breadth (material to be covered) and neglect the experience of studying, practicing, revising and refining a skill until a high order of competence is achieved. Usually, this is only experienced in extra-curricular activities such as sports, music, plays, etc., but shouldn't all students experience this part of the learning curve?
What are we going to do about including the future in
schools?
We have neglected the integration of the three time frames
for too
long. History courses should emphasize the processes,
attitudes and
skills of historical research, as if this were the student's
last history course and what they learned would have to serve
them for the next
60-80 years. These research techniques would be used in all
other subject areas to develop the student's historical
perspective within a discipline's context (math, science,
physical education, technology, etc.).
A course in future studies would emphasize the concepts, attitudes and projection techniques that can be used in other subject areas so as to enable students to better design and handle the future. One of the essential steps in the "futuring" process is to understand how present characteristics have developed from past events or trends, in order to project this into the future. Teachers will have to provide a better balance between "what" to learn and "how" to learn. Should we teach people to fish as well as give them a fish?
What are we going to do about other items on the agenda?
Things to think about while driving to work:
Equal sharing of hardship and labor"Let us not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice in our decay."
No privilege for rank
Entire subordination to the commander
Need to be a company, all together
Lee Smalley is Professor, Industrial & Marketing Education Department, University of Wisconsin - Stout.
Copyright 1989,
Journal of Technology Education
ISSN 1045-1064.
Permission is given to copy any
article or graphic provided credit is given and
the copies are not intended for sale.
Journal of Technology Education | Volume 1, Number 1 | Fall 1989 |
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