Public Education Is Between a Rock and a Hard Place
I appreciate the feedback and viewpoints many of you shared in response to my blog post, Public Education: Battle Lines are Being Drawn. THANK YOU!
It is my belief that only by coming together through meaningful debate and dialogue can we reach consensus on what teaching and learning is to be and its role in society and civilization. With the “why” defined, then the next steps are to design the processes, policies, procedures, and desired outcomes, along with identifying the means to financially pay for it. In short, define the purpose of public education, discern what does not work, rise above the current discourse, look over the horizon, and envision what could be and should be. Comprehending this means realizing that public education in its present state is between a rock and a hard place.
Showing what is possible in the future
helps us better deal with what’s hard in the present.
@gcouros
Against the backdrop of everything happening in our world today, it is hard to look objectively at public education, particularly in the United States. As I have said, family, relationships, religion, public education, commerce, business, industry, and governance, once the bedrock of society and civilization, are now being reflected upon, questioned, and evaluated. Factoring in political polarization, recent Supreme Court rulings dealing with abortion and gun rights, emotion, not logic, is engaged. There is this feeling of chaos as we struggle to realize that change is happening.
Chaos Is a Condition of Growth.
Chaos can be described as a human feeling of disorder and confusion. This happens when there is a deviation from predictable behaviors or outcomes. These deviations occur because of interactions, experiences, or breakthroughs of new knowledge, resulting in changing context, condition, or outcome. “The destruction created by chaos is necessary for the creation of anything new.” (Leadership in the New Science, Wheatley. P. 119)
Within the theory of chaos there are underlying patterns, interconnection, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, and fractals, all moving toward self-organization. Great emotion is generated in struggling to recognize emerging norms and let go of old predictable behaviors and outcomes,
As we try to apply 20th century industrial system thinking, morality, and beliefs to new 21st century conditions, dispositions, and realities, many are experiencing extreme disorder and confusion. What was and what we have always done does not fit with what is and what needs to be done. For some, these feelings of disorder and confusion are causing great angst and fear; for others, excitement and hope. These powerful emotions of angst, fear, excitement, and hope, felt in chaos, are generating the human energy which will result in change and transformation.
“Life seeks order but uses messes to get there.”
Margaret J. Wheatley
Margaret Whitley’s book, Leadership in the New Science. Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (1999), identifies many emerging themes and conditions for navigating through chaos. Her belief is that historical thinking on leadership and system design is based on mankind’s understanding of science. Mankind’s previous thinking of cause and effect, linear, top-down driven, supported by data and charts, defined the world by lines and boxes. The presumed result for society was predictability and order. The coming of new knowledge in technology and science, now accelerating exponentially, is stressing long held beliefs, causing disorder and confusion. For many, it is difficult to let go of what was and seek new because no one has had to do it for many generations!
The Butterfly Effect and Chaos
Part of chaos theory is the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. Think of throwing a large rock into a pond and it sends out ripples across the water, hitting against the shore, creating intended and unintended consequences. This illustrates the complexity and interconnectedness of the world.
Rick Smyre, in his book, Preparing for a World That Does Not Exist - Yet (2016), identifies minute localized changes within a complex system as “weak signals.” He states that few people notice these weak signals or recognize their potential for disruption and challenge to the status quo. They do not see the waves of change coming. So instead of catching the wave and surfing, society, as well as public education, are now gasping and struggling to catch up.
Multiple Weak Signals Hitting At Once.
Technology, relationships, the environment, and systems of governance are some of the weak signals that are now emerging, causing chaos. The result is that of mankind experiencing stress as we move from stability to instability and from order to disorder. Historically, mankind would have addressed each of these separately, but the reality today is that all of these are connected and interdependent, and need to be responded to collectively.
Technology
Relationships
The decline of organized religion, specifically Christianity, revisioning of family, and definition of oneself is impacting societal morality. Multiple generations living and working together at the same time each have their own beliefs on relationships and family. Nostalgic relationship patterns of grandmas and grandpas married for life conflicts with mom and dad patterns of divorce, and young adults living together or just “hooking up” dilutes the ideals of commitment and intimacy. With relationships being redefined, unacceptance is generating judgment, guilt, anxiety, and fear. Empathy and tolerance seem to have slipped away. All of this is contributing to the disorder and confusion, and subsequently impacting schools and public education.
Environment
Besides technology and interpersonal weak signals, the mistreatment of Earth resulting in climate change, is now sounding alarm bells. From earthquakes to droughts to sever storms, flooding, tornadoes, and hurricanes, Mother Earth is showing symptoms of alarm and sickness. These weak signals must be realized and responded to.
Governance
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.”
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, 1787
The creation of systems, governances, policies, and laws is necessary for the establishment of societal predictability and stability. In the United States, the Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the Constitution provided the rationale of why governments need to exist, and from the consent of the people, the power and authority to govern. Political polarization and the demonization of political perspectives is exasperating, creating fear, paralysis on reaching consensus, and impacts the ability to govern. This discourse is also reaching into classrooms and schools.
With technology integrating into every aspect of life, the question of relationships and how we interact with one another, the impact of Earth’s climate change, and the interpretation and operation of governance are all contributing to the chaos and instability. Each of these weak signals is fluid, flexible, not yet fully defined, but building in energy. The ability to navigate in these conditions, see the interconnectedness, and realize the possibilities needs to be instilled in all, especially the youth. Public education, or some other system of learning, could be the connective tissue that empowers students to access, discern, and manipulate knowledge, and create new knowledge to solve real world problems. The ability to adapt, learn, unlearn and relearn, as conditions and context change, is crucial to the survival of mankind.
Public Education is Between a Rock and Hard Place.
Those within the public education system, the teachers, administrators, and school board members, are in a no-win situation. Emerging weak signals are coupled with the design flaws of an educational system that was designed 100 years ago with the goal of conformity; going to college, entering society, and participating in the consumer society are stressing.
Public education today equates learning to prescribed amounts of time and sorts students by age, and was not designed to individualism, personalization, or differentiated instruction. Student academic achievement is measured by high stakes, standardized tests, with letter grades - A, B, C, D, F - assigned by a percentage of content memorized. Assessment of student learning is dependent on the student’s ability to recall facts and not necessarily mastery or application of content. The ability to think and apply knowledge is not evaluated. High achievement is recognized, and students are sifted into winners and losers. Dissatisfaction and criticisms are growing with public education.
For some time now, in numerous books, articles and social media, school reform and the purpose of public education have been the focus. Books like The Battle for the American Mind (Hegseth and Goodwin, 2022), Unshackled, Freeing America's K-12 Educational System (Bolick and Hardiman, 2020), and Unschooled. Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside The Conventional Classroom (McDonald, 2019), as well as articles in Education Week such as What is the Purpose of School? (September 2021) detail the shortcomings in public education. The Public Broadcasting System documentary, School of the Future (2016), shared evidence-based instructional techniques, addressed how students learn, stay motivated, and get engaged, and envisions what schools could look like based on up-to-date scientific research. From all this, nothing much has happened. Public education continues to resist change and remains in its silo. The voice and energy of the dissatisfied are growing.
“The indoctrination of our children’s minds is happening as early as preschool.”
Parents: Get Back In the Fight. Do Not Outsource The Raising of Your Children,
Cissie Graham Lynch, Decision Magazine (2022)
In the United States, most everybody has had an experience of school and learning, and yet when asked, cannot articulate why they learned what they learned. To go forward, we must let go of the myth and memory of public education, and discern today’s mission and purpose for public education, and simultaneously, determine how it is to be funded.
Defining the why, designing a flexible system of learning to accomplish it, and figuring out the means to pay for it, will move public education away from the rock and the hard place it is now in.
This is a Triple! or 3:1 posting...Sense-Making - Synthesis - Systems Thinking in one blog.... Do you have a complete guide to books that emerging education leaders might consider? Is Elliot Richardson's Creative Balance one of them? Thanks!
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