@mw63214 You're right. It's definitely a minimal overview. Just trying to keep thoughts concise but frequent - allowing others to pull from it what they will.
nothing wrong with that man. Heck, it would be good for the entire world if more hackers used sociological theory in forming ideas/products/services/etc...
Fantastic. Thank God we have someone like Sir Robinson to articulate the deficiencies of conventional education in a way that ignited the passion in others to challenge the senseless traditions that keep us bound to an antiquated system of "learning."
It can be difficult to draw a line between what constitutes "good" and "great" but I think Sokanu does a good job in this article. And Spencer takes it a step further with the introduction concept of adding a third level: Exceptional. Very thoughtful piece.
It's about time this topic get the attention it needs and deserves. And I am glad to see so many people take interest. I hope this article will turn some heads. Very timely with new Waiting for Superman movie. If you don't know what I am talking about, you need to read this post.
I'm totally with you about being excited that the topic is getting the attention it deserves - if enough people are turning heads, lending a dollar and a hand, maybe we can fix the problems with our education system.
However, the hardest part about giving a lot of attention to a topic is that people who are not authorities on the subject end up with opinions about what's going on, purely based on the media or the propaganda campaigns of the bigger players.
Even in examining my own perspective, I find myself dramatically in favor of destroying the teacher's union, expanding school hours and curricula, and providing more freedom to the students, so that they can engage themselves in the subject that most interests them and appeals to their strengths. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it?
But the problem with this is that I'm not an educator. I don't know what conditions are like and I don't know what the real challenges are - I just know what I'm being told by the media. Just as in a startup, we have a lot of potentially unproven hypotheses that need testing.
This then to me is the real promise of the charter school movement - not that all of them are successful (most are not - even the ones featured aren't nearly as great as they seem, as I'm finding out from working with them), but that they represent the freedom to try new things, measure them, and figure out what does work.
What scares me is that people think they have the silver bullet, rather than the silver hypothesis.
Even in making these drastic changes, if no improvement is wrought, then what?
Will people give up? Or pivot?
I do agree though the author is a bit naive sounding.
"By failure we mean the inability to properly educate our children equally and fairly."
I don't agree completely with this. By failure we mean the inability to properly educate our children PERIOD. Supplying "equal" education to the underprivileged is a sub-issue to the education issues (though it is a large sub-issue).
"One is that students are educated in order to prepare them for the world, allow them to succeed, and mold them into proper social citizens. This is the governments, parents and teachers point of view."
I wouldn't go as far as to say this is the government's point of view. The government I think has a main focus of molding people into "proper" social citizens.
"We need to discover our own purpose in order to help students discover theirs."
Good conclusion as well though it came out of left-field a bit. I agree that inspiring students should be the number one goal, and re-educating teachers first is a necessary step in reaching that goal, however difficult the task.
BTW every time you use the word "inciteful" I wonder if you made it up on purpose or if you just can't spell. And that worries me because anybody who thinks that "insightful" is spelled "inciteful" clearly doesn't have any idea what it means, and that would imply that maybe you're just using long words even though you don't actually know what they mean, and that doesn't make me inclined to pay attention to the rest of it.
So if you want some free advice, I would stick to using real words unless your neologisms can add a lot more value than they are here.
Very good article. Well written. The idea is definitely one to consider when interacting with others. Without it, common ground is hard to find. His quote, "Every single action that you take determines your world. And that is why perspective is so important to consider. We co-exist with billions of other people that live in their own worlds..." is so true.
