Commentary: Vision for the 21st Century School
Scott Lee shares a vision for how a school should support student learning in the 21st century. It is no surprise that most of our schools are still operating on an early to mid-20th century model and it is past time that this changes. Much of the “reform” agenda that many elected policymakers discuss is simply not relevant to the needs of students. If we are going to promote health, wellness and future success for children and youth it is time for a new narrative.
Transcript
Greetings friends and colleagues, welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast the professional educator’s thought partner-a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee. This commentary begins the fall semester of episodes for the 2022 season. I have several fascinating conversations lined up this fall, but I wanted to start by sharing a problem that I have talked with many people about lately. And some of what we are talking about today foreshadows the next few podcasts. The problem is this simple, the solutions are not. Much of the culture around schools and the way we run schools today is just plain wrong. We are not providing the educational experiences that our students need in the United States. Even though about one quarter of the regular listeners are outside the US, I suspect those of you in Scotland, Germany, Australia and many other places around the world are facing a similar problem.
Two of the big questions that keeps coming up both in this podcast and other conversations I have with educators are
Why do we do what we do in schools?
And
What should we be doing in schools for students now in this century?
Before we go on, I need to make something clear. Besides academic study, I have worked as a teacher or administrator in eight different schools, and between consulting projects and accreditation peer reviews I have been professionally involved on an operational level with many more. There is no one right answer for what schools need. The only universal truism I can offer is this: all schools operated with excellence are minutely tuned into providing learning experiences and support to the needs of their students and they have systems in place so that they know that what they are actually doing serves their students. Oh-and they are willing to change when the needs of their students change. Of course, what makes this problem so complex is the fact that the programs and interventions that work in one place can vary and change greatly from one school context to the next.
On more than one occasion during professional learning activities I have offered a thought exercise that goes something like this, “Imagine that public education is new idea. In other words that up to this point there had not been a public education system and you are part of the first group of teachers opening the first public school for the students in this community.” I give some wait time After a few moments to reflect, I ask, “Did anyone come with the school you have right now?”
I am sure that you will not be surprised that no one imagines the school or school system that they are working in. Nobody. I have occasionally turned this into a longer exercise where the group actually starts designing a new school. Here are some common themes that come up in these discussions. By the way, these are in no particular order.
The curricula have many fewer goals and there is greater clarity on essential learning all students should strive for.
Curricula is also developmentally appropriate.
Classrooms are not strictly aged based with static groupings for every learning activity.
Sometimes teachers work individually teaching a single group of students, other times teachers work in teams with larger groupings. (and that can change often during the day)
Lunch lasts longer than 15 or 20 minutes, and students are involved in meal planning and preparation as much as possible (sometimes even growing and harvesting food).
Student achievement is self-paced to the greatest reasonable extent.
Authentic learning activities happen a lot sometimes service learning, often times outside and even off-campus. Oh and there is enough support and personnel to make those activities reasonable, safe and worthwhile.
Of course, testing is used as it was originally intended, not to create a sense of failure, to shame, and to make excuses for further segregation. But instead, testing is used as a tool for determining the best set of academic interventions that are needed for students.
Health services are accessible on campus including mental health services. And wellness is an essential goal for success.
Unfortunately, we are stuck with a public education system that has not changed with the times. A quick history lesson about schooling for non-indigenous Americans will help illuminate the point. In the US compulsory public-school attendance for non-disabled students had been established in some Northern states before the US Civil War. Immediately following the US Civil War Southern states, while slow to pass compulsory attendance laws, did begin to fund elementary schooling that was available to all. Of course, in southern and some mid-western states almost all schools were racially segregated. But it became universal that people who were not disabled attended elementary school to learn basic literacy, math, and “good manners” (yes sometimes the words good manners was the term used at the time).
The next big change happened in the early 20th century as state leaders realized that the skills to develop a strong labor force required most non-disabled people to have at least an 8th grade education and that a high school education should be accessible to all who wished to attend (at least all people of primarily European descent who wished to attend high school).
Since those changes in the early twentieth century there have really been just four incremental changes to the structure of schools. First, compulsory attendance laws increased the age, requiring that youth must stay in school from age 11 or 12 to age 16, 17, or 18 depending on the state. Second, schools were legally desegregated, of course in many places it would be hard to tell that this has occurred. Third, as a result of Cold War fears the way secondary science was taught was radically changed to focus on inquiry rather than static knowledge. And the fourth major change was that schools must educate all students including students with disabilities. All of these changes occurred, however, without really changing the structure of schooling and without asking the question, “what do we really want students to be prepared for after they graduate?”.
So why talk about this now? Well, I, like you I’m sure, have been seeing all the “back to school” stories in various news media. With the exception of most education focused sources, most of what I am reading has little to do with learning. In my local newspaper a recent Sunday edition featured several articles about education. Two involved test scores for local and state schools, another about how teachers are having to spend hours and hours cataloging every single book they use in their classrooms so that anyone can review their materials on a public website, and another was about school security. These are certainly worthwhile articles for a local paper, but it reminds me that our public discussion almost never deals with the really big issues we need to be talking about. Namely that our public-school systems are designed to operate well in an early to mid-twentieth century world. Not in the 21st century.
Society has changed and our needs for schools have changed. For better or worse our economy is no longer based on assembly line production and industrial production continues to rely more and more on automation and robotics. Even before the pandemic workplaces that do not require employees at a specific location had gradually become more and more flexible. Non-employee contract work continues to grow. The workforce is shrinking because more and people are retiring. Technology has vastly changed not only workplaces but society as a whole, and yet in many schools the only real changes over the last fifty years is that technology has been welcomed into classrooms. But, the technology does not really change the structure of schools. There is a hugely greater need for students to thrive in every facet of wellness. We need a different approach. Besides changing academic needs, we need to teach students to learn how to interact in a more ethical and compassionate manner.
So how should a 21st century school be different than a 20th century school? I believe we need to start by expanding the vision and move away from the efficiency model of schooling-for some background on this go back and listen to the first of my conversations with Larry Brendtro from March of 2022. If you have already listened to that episode, you know the real problem. Our education system is not responsive to our current needs. It is not that everything we do is bad, or that everything must be scrapped, but serious change is necessary. We must face the truth that in the past when change was needed it was easier and less controversial. In the early 20th century when it became clear that changes were needed because society was changing new options and programs were simply added. We built more and bigger high schools for students who wanted to go, we moved from one room schoolhouses for grades 1 through 8 to schoolhouses with separate rooms for each grade level. We increased teacher credentialing and required more pre-service teaching education to the point where it became the norm for teachers, even in elementary schools, to be college educated. These changes were also made slowly over a generation or two. After that, education system reform became sidetracked and we tried to make the systems designed for some work for all.
So where are we now?
We need to restructure schools and the vision starts with explicitly saying what schools need to do, and literacy and math, while important, are not the only content skills our 21st century students need. In addition to quality literacy and math we need students to learn many more content and skill sets. Every student should be involved in real world problem solving every day, project-based learning that focuses on real world problems are not a nice thing to do but are essential, for every student. Creativity must be infused in all learning, art is not something for one room in a school but must be a critical component of all learning. On any day each of us can find hundreds of examples of why civic engagement must become part of learning and instruction at all school levels. But there is also more: every student must learn and practice compassion for others all the time. And as students do all these they must also develop an understanding for ethical cooperation.
Every problem we face: climate change, equity, economic uncertainty, violent conflict and other cultural issues all must be challenged by people who understand and solve problems collectively using each of these perspectives.
Yes, I am calling for change. What I am advocating is subversive in some communities. Much of what is needed cannot be distilled into a numerical test score. It is unlikely that these goals can be accomplished by privatizing the school industry. It requires active challenge of the status quo in many places and spaces. The purpose of this podcast is not just to share good ideas-although I hope we always are sharing good ideas-the real purpose is and will continue to be to advocate and support change-real, meaningful change- in schools and school systems. Our students, our communities and the world all need this. Please continue to join me on this journey.
The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions-if you would like to learn more about how we help schools and youth organizations imbed social emotional learning within their cultures and implement strength-based, restorative interventions, please visit our website w w w dot oncoursesolutions.net.
This has been episode 8 of the 2022 season. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it, either in person or using social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on the podcast app you use. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee who retains copyright. We encourage diverse opinions, however, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners or underwriters. Guests are never compensated for appearance, nor do guests pay to appear. Transcripts are available following podcast publication at our website thoughtfulteacherpodcast dot com. Sponsorship opportunities or other inquiries may be made on the “contact us” page at our website thoughtfulteacherpodcast dot com. Please follow The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast on Twitter @drrscottlee
