"A New Path to Education Reform: The Next Chapter on 21st Century Skills" is the official title of the august group of educators participating in the Brookings' discussion of 1/13/21. It came out of a Brookings Policy Report on education, and formed the basis for the discussion. Helen Hadani of Brookings was the presenter; Emiliana Vegas of Global Economy and Development, Ted Hintersmith, author, Victoria Sullivan, formerly of the New Hampshire state legislature, Kethy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University, and Elizabeth H. Edensheim of NYU--all participated.
I take it their point of view throughout the discussion was the need to reform educative institutions to incorporate the fundamental proposition that the world is forever changing and the education, no matter its level, must reflect how mankind strives to make this world even more livable for mankind than heretofore. That is to say, education must emphasize the changes in knowledge of that world and our efforts to make it a world more conducive to our betterment as its rational, conceptualizing inhabitants. Through our abilities as human beings we have that power to improve upon nature no matter the field of knowledge.
The discussion began by observing that the classroom is the same classroom of thirty years ago. But really, is that so? We've brought in audio-visuals, the internet, speakers from the community and business and other learning particulars, such as doing experiments, to bring the world into the classroom. What we are lax in doing to my way of thinking is that we haven't made room for the community at the curriculum table where, if they were there, they'd tell how the business world, especially, is geared to achieve projects--that the entire thrust of the quest for knowledge is to participate in a contemporary project to bring about change in how habits. Change in the automobile--today, going to the electric car, for example. That is, there's this year's change in the auto, followed by next year's model, etc. And the worker is invited to make his contribution in bringing about the new version in an ever-changing series.
So, what is missing from the classroom is an emphasis on change, on a departure from the old way, and its basis for the new way, with its new knowledge strands. Yet, it is precisely the graduate of the educational system who is being invited to become part of the new world that is producing the contemporary at this very moment in time.
By bringing together so many from different walks of life, Brookings is calling for an emphasis upon the recognition that we must engage in our world so as to keep up in the creation of what we want to be an even better world for us (as John Dewey, the American philosopher, argued.)
Bring into the classroom, therefore, not just the textbook of yesterday, but the contemporary magazines heralding change, e.g., Scientific American. Bring in the Shark Tank TV series where entrepreneurs are making use of new knowledge to make an even more hospitable new world for man to live in. Bring in speakers who tell how discoveries in applications of electricity are in the offing. So as to raise the question in these young minds of the students--what part are you to play! True, as these discussants pointed out, education is a lifelong process of involvement in innovation and welcome change, so long as we live.
In closing, these educators alluded to the fact that participating in your world is having fun from kindergarten to old age watching as the world spins.
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