EducationNews.org

1.At the most fundamental level, American education is suffering from an advanced state of what social scientists call "institutionalization."Societies adopt problem-solving strategies, then cling to those strategies rather than devise new ones as social change alters the nature of the problem.

In American education, one manifestation of this phenomenon is the failure to rethink the Adequacy and appropriateness of the "core" curriculum recommended by the Committee of Ten in 1892.Mathematics, science, language arts, social studies and other school subjects have taken on lives of their own only marginally related to societal survival and citizen well-being.

2. A consequence of this failure to adapt to social change is a general education suffering from myriad serious, unaddressedproblems.The present curriculum:

• has no overarching aim

• ignores the seamless nature of knowledge

• doesn't respect the brain's need for order and organization

• neglects important fields of study

• fails to move students smoothly through ever-increasing levels of complexity

• doesn't distinguish between degrees of importance of content

• insufficiently relates to real-world experience

• neglects higher-order thought processes

• emphasizes symbol manipulation to the neglect of other skills

• has no built-in self-renewing capability

• is overly dependent on extrinsic motivation

• makes unreasonable demands on memory

• is unduly susceptible to fads

• lacks a comprehensive vocabulary shared by all educators

• assigns students unnatural, passive roles

• fails to put specialized studies in holistic perspective

• doesn't encourage novel, creative thought

• penalizes rather than capitalizes on student variability

• lends itself to simplistic methods of evaluation

• neglects the basic knowledge-creating process of relationship exploration

• fails to address ethical and moral issues

3. These problems—any one of which is sufficiently serious to derail instruction—afflict American education at all levels from about the third grade up through graduate school.

4.Countering institutionalization requires a clear, operable statement of purpose.Of the two dozen or so options which routinely appear in the literature (e.g. "promoting democratic citizenship," "instilling a love of learning," "improving self-concept," etc.)the most comprehensive, precise, philosophically neutral statement of purpose of a general education is "to expand student ability to understand complex reality."

5.Understanding requires a comprehensive, systemically integrated organizer of knowledge.This organizer should structure the general education curriculum.

6.A simple, readily understood organizer has five main elements paralleling those of familiar models of reality—stories and drama.When we think about some aspect ofreality, we (a) locate it in an environment or setting, (b) assign it time dimensions, (c) identify participating actors or objects, (d) describe the action, and (e) attribute cause (plot), weaving the five together systemically.

7.The simplicity of this knowledge-organizing system invites its being dismissed as inconsequential or as too broad to be useful.However, its five elements, elaborated, encompass and organize all thought and language.The benefits which flow from everything a student knows being parts of a single, comprehensive, easily understood and manipulated, jargon-free, systemically integrated, relationship-suggesting structure of knowledge, are incalculable.

(The academic disciplines are elaborations of random parts of this structure.)

8.The main instructional challenge, then, isn't to "transmit content."The rate of social change, the rapidity of knowledge expansion, human variability, the sheer volume of information, and the unknowable nature of the future, make this effort intellectually unmanageable. "Content," dynamic and constantly evolving, can't be adequately captured for such a purpose.In the words of a once-popular song, "When I think of all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all." The primary general education challenge is instead helping students raise this knowledge-organizing process into consciousness where it can be examined, elaborated, refined, and routinely used.

9.This change of educational task is a true paradigm shift.But given inertia, the institution's hierarchical system of organization, the tenacity of the conventional wisdom, the politicization and commercialization of the curriculum, and the absence of leadership, making that shift is extremely difficult.The evidence of the need is overwhelming, but the present single-minded preoccupation with trying to improve the old paradigm, even to nationalize it, blinds us to the need.

10.However, what might make such a shift possible is the fact that illustrating and elaborating the sense-making process requires the use of content, and, for that purpose, the familiar, traditional content works well.No initial changes in budgets, staffing, course titles, class schedules, or any of the other paraphernalia of schooling, are necessary.What's required is acceptance of the idea that the primary use of traditional content isn't to store it in memory, but as a means to the end of logical decision making. Indeed, by giving "covering the content" a higher purpose, it is far more likely to make the transition into long-term memory.

(This means, of course, that tests would attempt to determine the degree of mastery of the sense-making process rather than measure the ability merely to recall specific content.Attempts to use the presently popular, standardized, machine-scored tests would be counterproductive.)

11.Of course, resistance to any change, particularly when it's "top down," is always formidable.Important would be voluntary participation, extensive dialog, public understanding that "the bar" was being raised, official approval and encouragement, staff development, administrative support, changes made in small, slow steps, and acceptance of the fact that genuine paradigm shifts require more than one generation.

12.The likelihood of success is nevertheless marginal.The institution is inherently static, few educators have had experience translating new theory into practice, and textbook publishers, test-makers, and other corporate entities, joined by ideologues, would mount powerful, emotional defenses of the "transmitting unconnected factoids" curricular status quo.

A process-focused curriculum should be fashioned collaboratively by teachers and students around the globe, making use of the Internet and open-source software.It should be accessible to all, constantly evolving, and dedicated to the greater community for the greater good.

Marion Brady
mbrady22@cfl.rr.com
http://home.cfl.rr.com/marion/mbrady.html

Published July 29, 2007