It really is a great occurrence when connections are made totally by accident. I reading an article in the New York Times about a bipartisan push for a Common Curriculum. A common curriculum would basically ensure that students are learning the exact same things and the exact same times. Regardless of the state/communities local issues and needs.
The article states:
“We are well aware that this will require a sea change in the way that education in America is structured,” says a statement the group intends to release on Monday. But, it adds, attaining the goals laid out in the new common core standards “requires a clear road map in the form of rich, common curriculum content.”
“By ‘curriculum’ we mean a coherent, sequential set of guidelines in the core academic disciplines, specifying the content knowledge and skills that all students are expected to learn,” the statement said. “We do not mean performance standards, textbook offerings, daily lesson plans or rigid pedagogical prescriptions.”
The curricular guides “would account for about 50 to 60 percent of a school’s available academic time,” the statement says, with the rest added by local communities, districts and states.
While doing some research for my thesis I came across this quote in Maxine Greene's Releasing the Imagination: "Young people may have to deal with ecological disasters, floods, pollution, and unprecedented storms; they may have to cope some day with chemotherapy and life support decisions. Literacy in more than one medium will be required if people are to deal critically and intelligently with demagogues, call-in shows, mystifying ads, and new programs blended with varying degrees of entertainment"(Greene p.13).
First it should be said that I LOVE Maxine Greene. I think everything the woman says is profound! What she does in the quote about is to subtract the job/career/performance aspect out of education. And instead asks the question, who will young people learn to think about the shit life will throw at them? Are we preparing young people to be thinkers? To think for themselves? Are we preparing them to tackle the problems that will inevitably come with future life?
nice post, rayshawn. i'm a big maxine greene fan too.
for whatever reason, people too often think that school is just about testing and training for jobs. they don't think about it in terms of 'critical thinking', helping kids learn how to be part of society. it's related to the ken robinson piece both you and emily posted. our current education system was designed for a specific time, and we're stuck in the model. we still educate like we're living in the industrial revolution. i'm curious to know more about the common curriculum and how much it really seeks a complete shift versus just another repackaging.