{"id":2599,"date":"2020-03-31T20:24:43","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T20:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/?p=2599"},"modified":"2024-10-15T22:02:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T22:02:03","slug":"schools-fundamentally-unchanged-since-1918","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/2020\/03\/31\/schools-fundamentally-unchanged-since-1918\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools Fundamentally Unchanged Since 1918"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cAll parents should be able to know what their children are\nlearning, and for those paying attention in the coming weeks, the virus offers\na chance for them to do just that.\u201d So concludes Jonathan Butcher, senior\npolicy analyst in the Center for Education Policy’s Institute at The Heritage\nFoundation in his recent essay<\/a> on\nsocial distancing and parents witnessing their children\u2019s education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Butcher\u2019s points about parents\u2019 need to understand what\ntheir children are learning and the opportunity afforded by this period of Coronavirus\nresponse are well taken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tough times can spur educational innovation. Now is the time\nfor a complete reassessment regarding how we educate\u2014and the students have to\ncome first. Someone once said, \u201cIf Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep January 1,\n1900 and woke up on January 1, 2000, the only aspect of our society that would\nbe familiar would be the school.\u201d  While\nsome curriculum has changed and new studies evolve, fundamentally, our government\nschools still operate as the factory education model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is in stark contrast to some new educational models\nthat are forming in the private sector. \nTake for example, Prenda, <\/em>a\nnew micro-school system in Arizona. At Prenda<\/em>\nschools there are no age restrictions. Rather, the learning readiness of the\nchild determines where they are placed.  The curriculum is broken into three parts:\nconquer, collaborate, and create. This gives students a sense of control over\ntheir education. During the conquer period children set goals for the basics:\nwriting, math, science, and reading. During collaboration, students work with\ntheir peers to select projects that are of interest to them. For example, if\nthe class focus is on India, students can then select the economics, history,\nor arts of India and study that aspect of the country. Shifting to create,\nstudents create an entire project that fits their interest, making a\npresentation and fielding questions after completing their research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these kinds of improvements elsewhere over the last\n50 years, government schools continue to teach without much aid of technology.\nEven with the copious amount of information we can access, our schools continue\nto emphasize uniformity and restrict out-of-the-box thinking, leaving little room\nfor new technological teaching techniques and innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, government schools often fail to support a student\u2019s\nstrengths and passions, but instead forces students to follow arbitrary tasks\nlargely aimed at training them to pass tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don Nielsen, program chair to ACTE, uses the example of a\nquadratic formula.  The mathematical\nconcept has been taught over multiple generations.  But it\u2019s something most never come across in their\ndaily lives. Not very innovative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Butcher stresses that \u201cwhen parents send children back to\nbrick-and-mortar schools, they should do so ready to raise questions, prepared\nwith more information.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed.  But there\u2019s a\nmore foundational problem.  We aren\u2019t designing\nan education system to prepare students with the skills required to solve\nproblems, innovate, and succeed in today\u2019s society.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time to start!  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAll parents should be able to know what their children are learning, and for those paying attention in the coming weeks, the virus offers a chance for them to do just that.\u201d So concludes Jonathan Butcher, senior policy analyst in the Center for Education Policy’s Institute at The Heritage Foundation in his recent essay on social distancing and parents witnessing their children\u2019s education. Butcher\u2019s points about parents\u2019 need to understand what their children are learning and the opportunity afforded by this period of Coronavirus response are well taken. Tough times can spur educational innovation. Now is the time for a complete reassessment regarding how we educate\u2014and the students have to come first. Someone once said, \u201cIf Rip Van Winkle had Read More ›<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":343,"featured_media":2600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1062],"class_list":["post-2599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-policy"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Bailey Takacs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/343"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2599"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2599"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/2599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}