“The Business of Education - is Education” – continued.
A follow-up to AV#229, Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt - cautionary words from 100 years ago.
Excerpts and Quotes – on the
purpose of education (2018-2021)
Comment on Another View #229: “You can’t just criticize; it’s not enough to whine about the market-based, business-oriented influence on public education’s mission. How about a positive affirmation of our mission?”
I have tried before. See Addendum,
page 6, from AV#156 and AV#180. Here is another attempt.
I like to collect statements that
offer a compelling vision of what education is for; of why we teach;
of all we hope to provide young people in schools and in college. These
statements are more traditional and, as I said before, “less monetary and
mundane” than what is au courant: “training for the workforce.” I hope
the four pages that follow raise our sights. I hope they remind us of time-honored
hopes and beliefs. I hope they might even inspire future teachers. It is
a noble profession. It is not just about career prep.
Critics will call the affirmations
here old-fashioned. Not relevant (a popular charge). Or (warning – this
will get a little wordy) TONE DEAF to the completely REASONABLE demand from the business community that education be PRACTICAL, that schools need to wake up
(woke up?) to THE REAL WORLD and give students a chance to experience the PLANT/OFFICE/FACTORY
before they graduate from high school (even though they will have another 45 YEARS
OR MORE TO BE IN THE WORKPLACE AFTER THEY GRADUATE, but never
mind, HERE’S A CHANCE TO GET THEM out of school and INTO OUR BUSINESSES ASAP,
so that we can TRAIN THEM, so that they will graduate from high school – CAREER
READY.
Most of the arguments, beliefs,
and examples that follow probably look familiar. Isn’t this what most of us
heard from our elders as we were going through school? I cannot think of one
K-12 teacher who talked about the workplace. In college, as an English
major who took a number of Religion courses, only in one course (ED 376:
Sociology of Education), as I recall, did the curriculum spend a minute on any career.
Have our fundamental beliefs about the purpose of education changed so much in a generation or two?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Descriptions of the purpose of
education from passages that follow:
“to lead a fulfilled life “a way to realize individual
possibility” “intellectual flexibility”
“better able to function in
a democracy” “classroom experiences
that reckon with the purpose of life”
“…the business of liberal education in a democracy is to make free
people wise.”
“…
both academic training and preparation to live a meaningful and fulfilled life.”
“…we need knowledgeable, informed citizens who can guide this
country in the proper direction.”
“My students are learning to read, write, and
multiply …
because those skills will help them navigate and
understand the world.”
“what [parents] really care about
… is that their kids are happy, have good lives,
and that they are fulfilled…”
A
higher purpose - “Start with Why” (Simon Sinek)
FROM SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS
“Kids hear adults describe them as lazy and selfish. I
see my students being kind every day,” by Kyle Schwartz, Chalkbeat
Colorado, Aug. 22, 2019.
|
It would be presumptuous of me to
suggest the ideas here reflect the “true” purpose of school and college. See “The
Many Purposes of Education”*—listing seven “different point(s) of view concerning
what education should be all about.” My goal is to encourage readers to
consider that we may have taken a detour, to ask if the current WHY isn’t
small-minded and short-sighted, and to reflect on what might be a more
meaningful purpose than the one that has taken hold of late. *https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-aim-of-education-8417 |
(Kyle Schwartz is a third-grade
teacher at Doull Elementary in Denver. Excerpted from I Wish for Change: Unleashing the
Power of Kids to Make a Difference.) https://co.chalkbeat.org/2019/8/22/21108696/kids-hear-adults-describe-them-as-lazy-and-selfish-i-see-my-students-being-kind-every-day
**
“Parents
. . . Shifted Their Definition of Success” - Summit
Schools cofounder Diane Tavenner on the
secrets of student happiness, Education Next, Spring 2020.
Senior editor, Paul E. Peterson, recently interviewed Diane
Tavenner, cofounder and chief education officer of Summit Schools, and author
of Prepared:
What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life.
Believe it or not, not everyone wants to go to Harvard. What’s better is when students find a good fit that matches who they are: for economic reasons, geographic reasons, their future aspirations, all of those things. When you think about what each individual wants and help them drive toward that outcome, versus a single outcome for a select few, you can help everyone succeed.
I can see that you can persuade students of that, but how about their parents? Their definition of success may be much more competitive than the one you’re describing here. How do you explain your mission to the parents?
One of the things we have discovered as we’ve shared the Summit model in 40 states through the Summit Learning Program, and in conversation with parents across the country, is that parents actually have shifted their definition of success. It’s still important to them that their kids have economic stability in their adult lives, but [from podcast] “what they really care about in addition to that is that their kids are happy, have good lives, and that they are fulfilled … and have good relationships and all those things.”
Most parents think other parents have a much
more traditional definition of success that’s about status, power, and wealth,
so they are quiet about their beliefs because they think they aren’t shared.
The primary reason I wrote the book was to help parents realize they’re not
alone. In fact, the parents who want their kids to be happy are a majority in
this country.
|
“All
organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear
year after year. Those who forget WHY they were founded show up to the race
every day to outdo someone else instead of to outdo themselves. The pursuit,
for those who lose sight of WHY they are running the race, is for the medal
to beat someone else.” Start with Why, Simon
Sinek |
This is an edited excerpt from an Education Exchange podcast, which can be heard here. https://www.educationnext.org/parents-shifted-their-definition-of-success-diane-tavenner-interview/
**
From “How We Achieve Student
Success,” Letter to the Editor, by Andrew Goldin, Chief Program Officer, Summit
Learning Program, Education Week, Jan. 16, 2019.
Our vision is to equip every student to
succeed in college and lead a fulfilled life. Our approach to teaching and
learning, which we call Summit Learning, is designed to put students on this
path by fostering mastery of content knowledge, lifelong problem-solving
skills, and habits that lead to success—like goal-setting and perseverance.
**
FROM COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
“A
Progressive Defends Liberal Education,” by Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street
Journal (Aug. 31-Sept. 1, 2019).
Noonan praises The Assault on American
Excellence (2019), by Anthony Kronman, professor and former Dean at Yale
Law School. She writes of his “idea that has largely been lost … that higher
education is a fundamentally moral enterprise whose purpose is to help students
become better human beings. Universities should be devoted not only to the
‘transmission of skills’ but the ‘shaping of souls.’”
“The vocational approach,” Noonan writes,
“involves the idea that life is all about work and the business of higher
education is to prepare you for a profession. This approach … has a restricted
sense of excellence. It asks, Kronman says, ‘What do I need to learn to be a
successful lawyer or computer scientist?’ and ignores the more important, ‘What
makes a whole life honorable and fulfilling?’”
**
“We Can’t Afford to Lose the
Liberal Arts,” interview with Fred Beuttler, associate dean of the Graham
School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies at the University of
Chicago, Inside Academe, American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA),
2018-19, No. 2.
The purpose of the liberal
arts: “Former Dean of the College, F. Champ Ward, who helped oversee the
University’s Basic Liberal Education for Adults program, looked at what the
purpose of a liberal education is. He said that ‘Humans are born equal, but
they are not born wise. Therefore, the business of liberal education in a
democracy is to make free people wise.’ And that, to me, is the purpose of
what we do. Ward said that in 1946, understanding very clearly the need for education
for citizenship, to develop a wise people who are capable of self-governance.”
The liberal arts and
citizenship: “If you go back to the purpose that Plato sees in [the liberal
arts] in The Republic, it is self-governance. The liberal arts are for
one’s own personal self-governance. But in a democracy, it becomes even more
essential that citizens are capable of governing themselves and seeing the
broad picture—and the best way to do that is through a liberal arts education.”
https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/ee/download/inside-academe-vol.xxiv-no2_.pdf
**
“Andrew Delbanco - A professor and foundation leader wants to expand study of humanities and encourage students to consider the purpose of life,” by Emily Borrow, The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 19-20, 2020.
As president of the Teagle Foundation, which
supports liberal arts education, he is working to revive a humanities-based
general education on colleges across the country. Together with the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Teagle Foundation is sponsoring a $7 million
grant program over five years to expand access to classroom experiences that
reckon with the purpose of life.
“If 2021 has taught us anything,” he says,
it’s that “we need to be able to have a reflective, deliberative conversation
about who we want to be.”
**
Clayton M.
Christensen (1952-2020) – “Professor Turned His Life Into a Case Study,” Obituary
in The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 25-26, 2020.
**
“The Great
Divide,” book review of two books by Edward Fawcett, Conservatism
and Liberalism, by William Anthony Hay, The Wall Street Journal,
Dec. 5-6, 2020.
**
“Scott Millar on University
Governance,” Inside Academe, ACTA, 2018-19, No. 3
What is your view of the
future of higher education and what can trustees bring to that?
“… Higher education is heading in new directions. There are certainly
revenue and expenditure challenges on the horizon. But at the end of the day, we
need knowledgeable, informed citizens who can guide this country in the proper
direction. And higher education is the way to ensure that future
generations have the proper knowledge, the proper intellect, the proper
analytical ability, and the proper decision-making ability in order to make
prudent, good, and reasonable decisions for the future of this Commonwealth and
the future of this country.”
(Scott Millar
is a member of the Board of Visitors at Christopher Newport University.) https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/ee/download/inside-academe-vol.xxiv-no3_.pdf
**
“Featured Donor - Dr. Harold Eickoff,”
Inside Academe, ACTA, 2018-19, No. 4.
“Like ACTA, Dr. Eickhoff emphasizes that a
comprehensive education includes both academic training and preparation to
live a meaningful and fulfilled life.”
(Dr. Eickoff
was President of The College of New Jersey, 1979-1998) https://www.goacta.org/wp-content/uploads/ee/download/inside-academe-volxxiv-no.4.pdf
**
“What Happens at College Doesn’t Stay
at College, The Current Campus and Its Impact on Society,” Inside
Academe, ACTA, 2019-20, No. 1.
Eugene Hickok, former U.S. Deputy Secretary
of Education, opened the panel by outlining how commoditization has ‘removed
the soul’ from higher education. Co-driven by both students and
institutions, the view of a college education as a consumer product has kept
costs high and returns low. https://www.goacta.org/2019/11/inside-academe-vol-xxv-no-1/
**
“The Most Contrarian College in America,” by Frank Bruni, The New York Times, Sept. 11, 2018. “What’s the highest calling of higher education? St. John’s College has some enduring answers.”
(My graduate degree is a Master
of Arts in Liberal Education, 1990, from St. John’s, Santa Fe, N.M.)
St. John’s College, which was founded in 1696 in Annapolis, Md., is the
third-oldest college in America and, between its campus there and the one here
[Santa Fe], has about 775 undergraduates. And I’m drawing attention to it
because it’s an increasingly exotic and important holdout against so many
developments in higher education — the stress on vocational training, the treatment of students as fickle consumers, the elevation of individualism
over a shared heritage — that have gone too far. It’s a necessary tug back in
the other direction.
“Your work and
career are a part of your life,” Dean Walter Sterling said when I met with him
and the Santa Fe president, Mark Roosevelt. “Education should prepare you
for all of
your life. It should make you a more thoughtful, reflective, self-possessed and
authentic citizen, lover, partner, parent and member of the global economy.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/opinion/contrarian-college-stjohns.html
CITIZENSHIP
Published on Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 18, 2021 – not long after the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
“How MLK’s views shaped my personal journey in the field
of education,” by Corey Edwards, Your Hub, The Denver Post. Rather
than quote MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Edwards points to “lesser-known
wisdom” from King—in a piece he wrote as an undergraduate at Morehouse College
in 1947. As Edwards puts it:
“Wisdom that resonates deeply with me because of the career I’ve chosen,
and the transformational impact this wisdom has had on my own life and the
lives of many other people across the country… I point to a particular passage
[from that essay, entitled ‘The Purpose of Education’] that
unfortunately is as relevant today as it was when it was published.”
Education must
also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively
and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental
life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At
this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its
purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think
logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and
the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To
save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims
of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to
discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from
the fiction. The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to
think intensively and to think critically. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
(Edwards only quoted half of this
passage; I added the rest of the quote to more fully reflect King’s statement
on education’s purpose.) Edwards is the northwestern director for Western
Governors University. https://yourhub.denverpost.com/blog/2021/01/how-mlks-views-shaped-one-coloradans-personal-journey-in-the-field-of-education/273029/
Addendum
From previous issues of Another View – a more inspiring vision for the purpose of education.
AV #156 - 2071 – Department of Workforce Development – A History – (Jan. 9, 2017)
from Addendum (pages 18-21)
1. Is education's foremost mission to
train the state's workforce?
Steven Fesmire, Letter to the
Editor, Education Week, Jan. 20, 2016
2. Forcing college
kids to ignore the liberal arts won't help them in a competitive economy.
Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post, Sept. 2, 2016 (excerpts)
3.
For the Sake of Humanity, Teach the
Humanities - Liberal
arts education is essential to good citizenship
-
Jim
Haas, Commentary, Education Week, Nov. 14, 2016 (excerpts)
4.
The big threat on
campus - Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg View, Dec. 5, 2016
5.
Bill
Ivey's book: Handmaking America - Barry Hessenius, Barry’s
Blog, Oct. 14, 2012
6. Character-Building
Beats Out Economy-Building as Goal
Catherine Gewertz, News in Brief, Education Week, Feb. 26, 2014
7. The Heart of the Matter, a report of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences,
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2013 (excerpts)
AV #180 - Mission statements from 10 high-performing [COLORADO] schools*–education for LIFE (June 12, 2018)
Character, Values, Citizenship, and - no surprise - not a word about training for the workplace
*The Classical Academy (Academy 20); DSST: College View; DSST: Stapleton; DSST: Green Valley; KIPP - Northeast Denver Leadership Academy; Liberty Common Charter School (Poudre); Peak to Peak Charter School (Boulder); STRIVE Prep – Rise (DPS); Twin Peaks Charter Academy (St. Vrain); Vanguard School of Colorado Springs (Cheyenne Mountain).
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