Education system reflect the larger society

As I reflect on the educational systems that we were exposed to this week via videos and readings alongside ones that I have encountered here and abroad, I am struck at the tug-of-war of ‘responsibility’ vs. ‘not my job’ prevalent throughout the system.

I surmised from the models we saw in Finland and Singapore that there is high sense of ‘this is my responsibility’ from the individual classroom continuing clear to the policy makers in their governmental legislative bodies. I also sense that there are meaningful conversations that flow along that continuum both ways to help establish the educational systems and national conversations that are in place. It appears that families, healthcare, and municipalities are also a part of this framework. There seems to be a basis of a cultural value that views the individual child, not only as an individual child, but as a member of the present and future societies, which are rooted and reflective on the past. By centralizing the funding and bureaucracy of education, they have been able to create a common mission for all citizens. The variety then comes in the form of pedagogy within the individual classrooms or schools. The participants in this sort of system, based on larger cultural and national values, potentially see themselves as larger community members with particular responsibilities to make the system work for the students as individuals and for the larger society. The Singapore model overtly stated that education was seen as a ‘nation building’ process.

As I look at what is happening in the US, I definitely don’t see a continuum nor do I see a common mission—educationally or nationally. We have been a nation built on the ideals and freedoms of the individual in reaction to previous economic, religious, and social norms. However, in connecting our foundation to that cornerstone, the ones in power often create systems based on this value of ‘me’ as an individual at the expense of many in the larger, more diverse community. It has continued through today. In the political arenas we argue about “whose responsibility is it: individual, city, tribe, township, county, state, or feds?” in a myriad of areas of our daily lives. If we find ourselves in a discussion that is very difficult, we often dismiss into someone else’s arena of responsibility. I think our education system is a pretty good reflection of our larger society, partisan and sectarian…

Funding, sometimes adequate and most times paltry, from a variety of sources and often dictated by the business community’s interest,

Policies, sometimes contradictory with one another, dictated by a variety of sources,

Educational Vision, dependent on educational structure, dictated by a variety of sources, but not often enough by the educators themselves,

Teacher Preparation, highly dependent on college pre-service education, mentor teacher, and too often the last time they participate in a regularly collaborative and reflective process,

 

Under our system it often takes a coincidental group of adept jugglers to keep funding sources and policies in mind while trying to keep teaching and learning both meaningful and seamless in delivery from early childhood to graduation. It is tragic because I believe that this has led to a system with so much external chatter that is difficult to believe that a teacher should have a vision and be reflective instead of simply doing the job with least impact on the radar screen.

I feel like I left this on a really down note, but my visions of the discussion to solve this are wrapped in not only our rights as Americans, but how they are balanced with the responsibilities as Americans to other Americans, regardless of birthright…and involves things like healthcare and education based on prevention rather than intervention, mandatory national service, livable wages, childcare, and other things that would probably be dismissed as socialist rather than nation building.