Seth Godin says the future of education in in small, self-motivated, guided learning communities who examine really important and authentic (read "real-world") problems. These won't necessarily be housed in buildings. He maintains that teachers have to be good at their art. And the education will be free. He takes shots at the old style school because the model was for an industrialized society/community. From his point of view, we all now live in a different society / economy and schools need to be in the business of creating folks who can use their own artistic selves to creatively solve problems in ways others have not. The old schools and their teachers taught "compliance rather than initiative." It's easier to do that
"Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat. Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It's difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it's a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.Schools like teaching compliance. They're pretty good at it."
On his blog, Godin says "companies don't want compliance anymore."
In another post, Godin offers a starter list of the purpose(s) of school and hopes this list will at least get a discussion started so we can define what we want school to do."The purpose of school is to:
- Become an informed citizen
- Be able to read for pleasure
- Be trained in the rudimentary skills necessary for employment
- Do well on standardized tests
- Homogenize society, at least a bit
- Pasteurize out the dangerous ideas
- Give kids something to do while parents work
- Teach future citizens how to conform
- Teach future consumers how to desire
- Build a social fabric
- Create leaders who help us compete on a world stage
- Generate future scientists who will advance medicine and technology
- Learn for the sake of learning
- Help people become interesting and productive
- Defang the proletariat
- Establish a floor below which a typical person is unlikely to fall
- Find and celebrate prodigies, geniuses and the gifted
- Make sure kids learn to exercise, eat right and avoid common health problems
- Teach future citizens to obey authority
- Teach future employees to do the same
- Increase appreciation for art and culture
- Teach creativity and problem solving
- Minimize public spelling mistakes
- Increase emotional intelligence
- Decrease crime by teaching civics and ethics
- Increase understanding of a life well lived
- Make sure the sports teams have enough players "
School is a complete failure. " Teachers are the key to the whole deal. We need teachers to care so much that they can't stop pushing until they create change in the students who really need (and deserve) it." The Linchpin link will take you to a You Tube video "Seth Godin on Education."
I agree that there are some communities where the school has failed miserably, despite pockets of brilliance in some classes. For these communities, failure of leadership is just one of the obstacles to learning. And Godin's right, more money will not improve the conditions in those schools. In some communities too many people have abdicated their responsibility to teach, starting with parents, a child's first and primary teacher.
I particularly appreciated one commentator's remark that there really isn't much new in Godin's agenda. That pushing the humanities and critical thinking projects and teaching leadership to everyone has been around for a decade or more and it still hasn't changed things.
From my humble perspective, I believe that not everyone does live in an information-only society. There aren't just people with a passion to be artists. Some want to live as the artisan (the plumber, the electrician, the carpenter/cabinet maker) -- not everyone has the ability, even if it's not politically correct to tell them, to be Picasso, to be Sir Isaac Newton, to be Colin Powell. For my part, I'm glad we have good mechanics.
Recently, I read a letter from the parent of one of our school's graduates. The young man had been studying auto mechanics. He became interested in engineering when one of our teachers got him involved in a bridge building competition. The parent wrote in to say that the aspiring auto mechanic now has a master's degree in Civil/Mechanical Engineering and his design was chosen for a bridge in Pedricktown, New Jersey.
Godin doesn't seem to see or believe that there are many routes right through the middle of our public school system to become a wonderful leader, an ingenious problem solver, or an inspiring artist. I believe our schools K to 16 have been a great experiment in attempting to teach everyone. Few school systems around the world even attempt that.
Like Godin, I believe that teachers are the key and that teachers need to get better at their art every day, every year. I believe the work of researchers like Robert Marzano Classroom Instruction That Works or Doug Lemov Teach Like a Champion will help codify the techniques and show teachers what works, not just tell them.
I believe schools are changing and that technology will help propel this change. I also know that change is a slow process because people's values change slowly. And learning, even teacher's learning, occurs slowly over time with lots of practice and patience. There is no silver bullet.
1. Solve interesting problems.
2. Be self reliant.
3. Find the information you need from the Net and other places.
4. Connect.
5. Lead.
6. Invent.
7. Fail.
8. Learn from #7 and repeat."
When I went to the Classroom 2.0 archive for Elluminate discussions and listened to that webinar, Godin's remarks included ideas related to balancing the practical realities of making a living and going out there to create the kind of change he envisions:
Downsize
Cut your costs
Go out on a limb
Get in trouble
Mavericks are rarely punished or expelled
If you’re good at your art and they expel you, you will go somewhere else and make a difference
And for parents interested in effecting change
Start a Mother-Son or a Father-Daughter Book Club
Something that will start a conversation like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
Once a week get together and create the right kind of conversation
Steve Hargadon, who created Classroom 2.0, also has a print interview with Seth Godin at that website.
Linchpin may just be another on this summer's growing reading list.
