Learning Reimagined

We can’t even keep the kids in school. A third of them drop out. Half of those who remain go on to graduate without the skills for college or a decent job. Someone please tell me how this is a good thing.

Herbert goes on the quote a passage from “Raising the Grade: How High School Reform Can Save Our Youth and Our Nation” by Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education:

“International comparisons rank the United States a stunningly unimpressive eighteenth for high school graduation rates, a lackluster ranking of fifteenth for high school reading assessments among 15-year-olds in developed countries, and an embarrassing 25th for high school math.”

And Wise believes that ”… America’s high schools are for the most part obsolete, inherently ill equipped to meet the needs of 21st-century students. The system needs to be remade, reinvented.” (Italics mine to emphasize that if the institution if obsolete, there is no reform, only creating something new. It may be a colossal waste of energy to “reform” rather than “create”.)

I’m flummoxed! I simply can’t understand (or accept) our unwillingness to engage in the excitement of creating a wonderful new learning environment. We’ve got an astonishing array of new, powerful learning tools right in front of us, making learning easier and more available and convenient than ever.  I guess Deming is right: “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” What do you think?

Next post: see how Pat Dolan accurately analyzes the old “system”.