In Virginia, Ohio, and across the country, schools are experiencing massive disruptions. While regionally, there are differences, many of the causes are similar: continuing COVID-19 complications, lack of funding, teacher burnout, and in some states, a massive teacher shortage. This shortage isn’t because there aren’t enough trained teachers, but instead from qualified teachers who have had enough.
In this article from Virginia Mercury, we see a comprehensive overview of the genuine threat to Virginia’s high-quality public education infrastructure. This threat is mirrored in many other areas, including Columbus, Ohio, where teachers were striking at the start of the school year, arguing against terrible working conditions and subpar pay. These grievances are not only valid, but they are also the evidence that an entrepreneurial school district needs in order to innovate and reimagine how to educate in the modern world.
Taking a step back from the emergent issues, we can also reflect on how much of what currently ails the education system was on its way well before COVID-19. Some of this has to do with the perceived goal and therefore value we place on education. Why are students learning the subjects they do? How are we setting parameters for teachers and students to measure success? Do these things need to change in order for us to create solutions to our current (and long-standing) problems in public schools?
Thinking about the tumultuous changes to education, one might naturally consider how this impacts the job market. As has been reported for several years, jobs increasingly care about skills, mindsets, and experience over holding a particular degree. In this recent article from the Washington Post, we see an examination of the recent trend of ditching the degree requirement in a variety of fields, namely IT.
What’s clear in the article is that skills reign supreme, and while there is some value in a four-year degree, it is diminishing. This diminishing value is, in some ways, replaced by new flexibility in the workforce. This is flexibility framed by one’s ability to choose a new path, build new skills relatively quickly, and find a job that suits their interests or allows one to earn more than they were previously.
But how are our overall systems of education organized to enable this era of skill development? As we saw previously, not very well. So, what is to be done?
As we see the start of the public school year throughout much of the US and other countries, let’s take a moment to reflect on the goal of education and how we might want to reframe it.
For starters, many of us believed that the path toward the highest paying and most rewarding job was a college degree. And while it is true that, on average, a college degree can have enormous benefits, this belief doesn’t tell the whole story. For one, almost half of those that enroll in college end up dropping out. What’s more, the economic demands of the job market simply don’t align with the idea that everyone needs a four-year degree.
For many of you reading this, this is not news. So what does this mean in terms of education goal setting? This video from Kevin Fleming suggests that rather than only caring about graduating high school or getting a degree, we should be setting the goal of finding a successful and fulfilling career. This comes through focusing on one’s unique interests, talents, and abilities, often found through improved self-awareness. Finally, the video offers several more illuminating suggestions for how to set these new goals.
But what is the overall benefit of changing how we think about the importance of education? How can changing the goals improve a system that is appearing more and more dated and flawed?
Hat tip to ELI friend Brian Dozer for sharing this piece with us.
Closing out this month’s Top of Mind, we turn to a paper published in 2011 focused on the importance of curiosity in schools. While we have focused on many of the contemporary issues of education this month, it is also important to reflect on the overarching trend of modern learning. In this paper, “[Susan] Engel argues that interactions between teachers and students can foster or inhibit children’s curiosity. She offers an explanation for why curiosity is not a priority in our educational system and calls for greater attention to children’s interests and explorations, which, she argues, are the mechanisms that underlie authentic learning.”
Using various studies and stories of how teachers have helped or hindered curiosity, Engel provides a useful lens to view our current dilemmas: are our educational systems and mechanisms fostering curiosity or conformity?
While the path forward is anything but easy, let us, as educators and supporters of education, remember the value of real and earnest learning through personal discovery.
