I believe the role of schools in 2025 will be to develop students in three different areas which are skills, character, and content knowledge. Content knowledge is what school perhaps is most famous for. No one would argue the importance of being taught content knowledge in Math and language arts. It is important that students to learn the basics in these classes as their importance is more readily apparent, so much so that the government readily funds these programs. However it is also important that students learn the content of other classes if not for the simple reason of knowing, but that the content of history or music helps student develop in skills and character.
Skills are important because they are able to be applied in multiple settings, knowing how to analyze a document for bias is valuable in more settings then being able to recite the Rome’s Five Good Emperors. The question however is what skills will be the most important in the world of 2025. The skills that will be most important will center on interpersonal skills, and technological I believe. The Nine Shift really made a lot of sense when it talked about the Internet Age. Students will first off need technological skills taught in school, and have their assessments involve technology. It can be too easy to assume that students will develop these skills on their own, or in another venue. However these skills are too vital to leave up to assumption. Just as students used to learn how to write in cursive (The Nine Shift asserts that this isn’t the same anymore) elementary students should be taught typing skills. Students should be around technology as much as possible in order to give them plenty of experience and time to think about how new programs and devices maybe used for school projects as well as for life after school. The next skill is interpersonal, since the work place is becoming increasingly group orientated. The work place is a gathering point where people from an assortment of backgrounds and skills will come together to solve basic problems and create products to help our society. If a student is not taught or does not have practice in how to treat people or even communicate they will be lacking in an essential skill that even employers today are looking for. I wrote earlier in this blog about how increased globalization will also place added pressure on interpersonal skills. I repeat this issue in this blog because I do feel that this is perhaps one of the most important things a person must learn. All the problem solving skills and content knowledge in the world does not do any good if a person is not able to communicate the solutions nor motivate those around them to comply.
Character is the last point here that I will write about concerning the role of schools in 2025. This is because the character of the young decides the fate of society for the next generation. The point of all species is to propagate the next generation. For simpler organisms this means merely passing on your genetic code, and hopefully it will be the winning code to further the species. Humans however are nowhere near as simple. We are a species that regularly adopts other species (pets), so genetics being passed on to the next generation is not necessarily what we worry about, we worry about our values and culture living on into the future. Gardner in 5 Minds for the Future wrote that a world without ethics is a bleak place to live in, and I agree. Now many people would assert that this is really the job of a child’s family and not some stranger like a teacher. As a parent myself I am inclined to agree, however not every child is blessed with parents that care to teach them positive character traits. For this a child does need another role model to look to, and this is where school steps in as it traditionally has. Though when I say that schools should teach values, I mean some of the overarching themes of being a good citizen. Students should be aware of some of the United States’ major values such as equality, and natural rights. After teaching students about these themes, then teachers especially social studies and language arts teachers should prod students along using their classes to help students figure out their own values and what is right and wrong.
I also believe that it is important that students be taught in a way that skills and knowledge come together in meaningful ways for them. By striving to make learning experiences more authentic students will be more receptive to the material, and it will reach a wider range of students. Too often teachers revert to the sage on the stage, leaving out students who do are not talented at learning from only hearing and watching. Those who do not do well, Jeannie Oakes writes often get written off as just not talented in that subject. I can relate to being one of these students as Math did not feel relatable to me. Teachers in my high school were content with just letting me get by in math, and since I did not feel that the subject was going to relate to my future I blew it off so long as I maintained a “B”. I think one way to make learning experiences more authentic is with collaborative efforts by teachers in different subjects. In middle school I was lucky enough to have my social studies and language arts combined into a “humanities” course. In 7th and 8th grade history, reading and writing were closely linked. We read a great deal of historic fiction such as My Brother Sam Is Dead, and Red Badge of Courage. These books helped history come to life for me, and were the beginning of my interest in the subject. For the history part of the class we were expected to give presentations, and write reports instead of take multiple choice tests. The presentations forced me to draw links between the various historical facts being taught, and I had to synthesize themes that could be drawn from the units and draw a conclusion. From there I was then expected to not only write about it but then explain to the rest of the class what I felt was important about the unit. As corny as it may sound, it made me feel that I was learning about life, and not just names and dates. Looking back on these memories I really feel my passion for history and people came from this interdisciplinary class. I bring this up because while I felt that I could not relate with math, I was an avid fan of the sciences. Biology, Earth Science, Chemistry, Physics, I enjoyed them all; I enjoyed learning about how the world worked around me. I often joked that I was an “A” student in physics, but never had a desire in fact dreaded the concept of entering pre-calculus. I wonder how things could have been different if my math teachers worked together with my science teachers in the same manner as my “humanities” teachers did in middle school. I believe that you have a higher chance of reaching more students if teachers worked with teachers of other subjects to create unique lesson plans that showed the value of the information being taught. If a student is not necessarily interested in one of the subjects, its ties to the other could spark a new interest.
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