Education and schools as the American Auto Industry
David Brooks wrote a very interesting article in the March 31 New York Times about General Motors (G.M.)There is an eerie, chilling echo to what I call General Education (G.E.)–you know, schools, or the establishment. See if this resonates with you.
Brooks pointed out that, “For 30 years, GM has been restructuring itself toward long-term viability.” Then he observes that, in the time G. M. was restructuring, their market share took a long, steady slide downward. But nothing “…stopped the waves of restructuring. The Powerpoints have flowed, and always there has been the promise that with just one more …push, sustainability nirvana will be at hand.” The experts identified what they thought was the problem: costs. But, “The real problem is the product. The cars are not good enough. The management is insular. The reputation is fatally damaged.”
That’s how we’ve been spending out time, isn’t it? That’s the conclusion many of us have made, isn’t it? That management is insular. That the experience is no longer any good because we’ve (educators) failed to keep up. Isn’t our reputation damaged witnessed by the vast number of students dropping out mentally and physically or the growth of homeschools or the growth of charters or the 50% dropout of new teachers to the field?
Teaching as a Subversive Activity was published in 1968—40 years ago. We had the A Nation at Risk in 1983. And after hundreds of reports and many theories of reform and restructuring, school today is essentially the same as when my father went to school in the early part of the 20th centurty: teacher led classes, prescribed curricula, 8-3 school day, September to June school year, tests, similar curricula (English, history, math, science, elective, and physical education), taught in classes of 30-40 students, in age-segregated classes of 12 grades. We have been restructuring for at least 40 years, and I bet longer if we do a little research.
It interests me why there is this knowing, perceiving, doing gap. Next time I’ll offer what appears to me to be an idea that could change this if people–parents, educators, policy people–could choose something different.