We
Americans are a stubborn bunch - we can know what would be good for us
and what needs action - and yet we still don't do much, if anything. We
would haggle down to the last nickel for the price and features of a new
car and yet allow issues on the education of our young people be handed
off to "experts" and politicians, who spend our money and make
decisions without really knowing what it's like to be overwhelmed in the
classroom trying to help kids invest in -- and prepare for -- the
future, which for them must now be problematical at best. As former
teachers, we have heard for years "do more with less." Now it feels
like "do more with nothing!"
In these years since the Nobel Prize
in 2005, we have travelled around the world at the invitation of many
countries alarmed by these issues - poor test score performance,
inadequate preparation for employment, apathy and lack of interest by
students, and the likelihood that jobs and manufacturing will continue
to be outsourced elsewhere. Our society, culture and civilization have
reached a crossroads and we are making too many wrong turns.
These
efforts to speak out are reinforced by our combined 85 years in public
education and what we have learned by study, experience and observation.
Our primary goal now is to re-examine the current focus of all things
educational on annual achievement testing. Individuality, creativity and
originality are stifled by the "tunnel vision" of teaching to the test,
sad particularly as it is unclear whether the information learned is so
valuable and/or even retained in useful ways afterward. We especially
regret that the individual's scores do not systematically come to the
parents. In what should be an Age of Innovation, we are coming up short
with the needed talent and inventiveness (at all levels) that could
restore our nation to the forefront of world power and productivity.
So, keep tuned - we have lots to say...
LindyQH
PS -we intend to establish a blog/forum for discussions in this topic area
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