It's graduation season again -- yet nobody seems to be celebrating.
On college campuses, graduates are entering an economy in which the stable career paths of yesteryear are disappearing -- and the specialized job opportunities of tomorrow have yet to appear. And in communities across the country, parents and young people are left wondering what exactly those past four years of high school were in service of -- and how much, if any, truly transformational learning occurred.
Something's gotta give. The Industrial-Age model of schooling, which benefited 20th-century generations by serving as a legitimate ticket to the middle class, has clearly run its course. In its place, we need a model for a new age -- the Democratic Age. And we need strategies for ensuring that young people learn how to be successful in the 21st-century world of work, life, and our democratic society.
We can get there, but to do so we need to start asking -- and answering -- the three most essential questions in education reform:
An important post - what is the goal of an education today - a question that maybe parents need to think more about than the school system.
A question that I am asking my own kids who are having kids. We are so conditioned to think that education as we know it is still the way.
My grand daughter is exhaustingly bright. She will hate school as it is. She is only 2 now. What will we do? What is our plan for her?
I don't know yet but it is important that we as a family start to take responsibility to ask ourselves about.
