"How can we operate our schools?" and "How can we provide an excellent education for our children?" Are two very different questions.
The former leads to business analogies, content-bloated curriculums and standardized testing. The latter means we have to actually guide our actions based on what is best for the children.
Provide an education still sounds like providing a service defined by curriculum. I prefer - helping kids to become well educated, creative and critical thinkers, love learning - llls , caring and responsible people.
ReplyDeleteProvide an education (a thing transferred), provide the means for an education (resources and opportunity); I guess it probably does matter how you define what you do for young people. I think conceiving of outcomes for learning is unavoidable. I don't think it practical to engage in public education without them. If students formulate learning outcomes independently we probably still position ourselves as learning gate keepers. There will be some outcomes young people want that we will be unwilling to facilitate through mentoring and access to learning resources. The patterns of learning we follow are meaningful even if we agree they need to be flexible, differentiated, and authentic. We probably cannot avoid asking the question, "How do we operate our schools?" What we should never allow ourselves to do is forget the second question and the elements of control both questions ask.
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