Saturday, September 03, 2011
Op-Ed: Rethink, relearn
...But history tells us that today’s public schools are the legacy of corporate fads from the 1900s, when large industrial enterprises were keenly interested in securing a docile workforce that recognized and respected hierarchies. The tinkering, self-starting spirit that had been a necessity in a frontier society was snuffed out by design. We’ve been taught that education is this constricted, standardized and homogenized thing that happens in buildings called schools in between the ringing of school bells.
Just as aging industrial companies angle for tariffs to be protected from more nimble competitors, resistance to corporate education reform is to be expected. But there is an ugly side effect. Industrial-age schools have sapped our ability to learn in the wild....