“When you shake another’s hand, that is the time you truly feel your own.”
-Martin Buber
Schools are often the subject of contradictory pressures – either to redress societal wrongs immediately by teaching particular brands of morality or to remain above the fray; to specialize in particular subjects and themes (the arts, the environment, technology) or to remain broad-based; to adopt competitive business models and become private, franchised, and chartered or to remain a publicly-funded; to keep to the basics or take on social service functions; to integrate or segment; to standardize more rigorously or to allow for unregulated exploration. Either way, schools as we know them today are dizzy from the ideological pendulum, battered by criticism, and always tyrannized by the urgent.
We continue to approach schools in the same instransigent way we have traditionally conceived intelligence – as quantity over quality. Stephen Jay Gould’s “Mismeasure of Man” (1981) argues vigorously against Samuel George Morton’s theory of intelligence (1839), which still informs our “more-is-better” mentality. Gould writes: “Morton measured cranial capacity (with ball bearings) believing that, the larger the cranial capacity, the smarter the person was.”[1] Clearly, Howard Gardiner’s groundbreaking work in the field of learning, particularly “Multiple Intelligences” (1993), supports Gould’s deep concerns over Morton’s reductionist – and dismissive – assessment of intelligence. Gardiner demonstrates how¸ rather than if, one is intelligent.[2]
In like fashion, such solid research should also reflect a contrasting vision to the school-as-vessel metaphor, in which reform replaces one liquid for another, generation after generation. New, transformational models must be driven by central questions such as: “How can education move from a time-limited, building-centric, age-specific entity to a process of life-long learning? How does one learn?” and “Where does learning take place?” In an information age, new models for learning must enlist structures that can maximize personal integrity, effectiveness in the workplace, a love of learning, and a commitment to human welfare. We may be surprised by our answers to such questions. Schools may not look like schools as we know them anymore, but perhaps resemble Quaker villages, universities, and summer-camps, or take on far more extensive virtual communities of classmates accessing problem-solving across borders.
A deep evaluation of these admittedly complex questions will lead to a substantial, sustainable, and transformative set of new structures for learning. Those structures are likely to be interdisciplinary and creative in nature. We must then consider concepts undergirding whole systems design[3], the power of culture and “best practices,” and transformational leadership theory, rather than policy change, “high-stakes” testing, carrots (more funding) or sticks (less funding) for school attendance or test performance. New designs for learning imply a corollary architecture and a new cartography of knowledge. The traditional metaphor of industrialized delivery system for schooling and training must give way to metaphors of educational processes that look like living organisms, indigenous communities, even a geographic information service scan of local resources.
U.N.E.S.C.O.’s Delors’ report (1989, 1996), addresses those questions by focusing on four pillars of education: learning to do, learning to be, learning to know, and learning to live together.[4] A brief interpretation of those pillars is necessary, followed by an example of how core principles can be operationalized.
- Learning to Be: independence and judgment combined with a stronger sense of personal responsibility. A particularly strong need to bridge tradition and modernity; the universal and the individual; the spiritual and the secular. All too often, the children we meet are bereft, hopeless, and without a sense of the future. Their sense of self and confidence needs to be connected to culture and competence.
- Learning to Do: the development of effective skills for economic sustainability. While the educational dimension caters more for the individual needs, abilities and potentialities and the economic development dimension caters more for societal needs and employment requirements, the two find common ground.
- Learning to Know: education for globalization and increased interdependence; an awareness of, and planning for, a new content of learning that considers uncovering knowledge as important as coverage of a particular subject; a different process of learning and an attention to how we learn; and – most significantly – the awareness that all learners are different. Essential, too, is the importance of bridging the “digital divide” between information haves and information have nots, and the ability to share information, interpret and localize it, and re-use it – across borders.
- Learning to Live Together: a “learning society” and “caring society” considers men and women as truly human social beings who can in harmony not only among themselves, but with nature, and the global environment. Such a society considers learning to be a social construction and a collective, moral enterprise.
Imagine, for a moment, a structure for learning that reflects these pillars. Certain buildings and rooms may reside at the school itself and can be used as central gathering places for media, group study, skill development, and diagnosis. The student inquires at work centers, cultural centers, skills centers, and service centers that extend to and beyond the school itself, which evolve and use the strengths of community resources and relationships, depending upon the curriculum. These resources and relationships may include extended families, peer groups, professional associations, communication media, religious centers, natural recreation spots, and other socio-cultural meeting places (Ahmed, 1992)[5]. The boundaries of the school are therefore permeable.
Table 1. School Reform Model (interpreted from Delors Report 1989/1996)
|
Learning
To Be(Cultural Centers) |
Learning
To Do(Work Centers) |
Learning
To Know
(Skills Centers) |
Learning
To Live Together
(Service Centers) |
| Year A |
a.m. |
p.m. |
|
|
| Year B |
|
a.m. |
p.m. |
|
| Year C |
|
|
a.m. |
p.m. |
| Year D |
p.m. |
|
|
a.m. |
- Years A-D represents a four-year outline. In Year A, a 1st year student is involved in a Learning to Be program in the morning, then Learning to Do in the afternoon. Over the course of their four years, students rotate through, and elect to take, the “pillars.” (This simple structure, of course, can be modified; for example, a year’s program can be split again so that a student would experience all four pillars – a.m. and p.m. for two semesters.)
- Each “pillar” has its own assessment system, aligned with the subject itself, and designed by faculty, local resources, worldwide best practices, and representative students
- The learning environment is constituted of not more than 500 students in order to ensure a sense of being known and include
- Four teachers are assigned to each pillar; there are two learning specialists, who work with community members in diagnostic activities; the faculty is always available for curriculum review and research.
The model proposed also implies that underutilized rooms can be used for other community needs. The playing fields may even be sold so those students who choose can participate in athletic activities in their neighborhoods, rather than take care of all their physical needs at the school itself. Loyalty to one’s school is replaced with loyalty to one’s community. Rather than assume that all learning communities are embodied in schools alone, we may see a future in which vital learning experiences look more like cafés, clubhouses, conferences, invention workshops, marketplaces. They may be places where young people can create, work with mentors, apprentice with masters, and serve their
communities (Owen, 1996)[6]. New learning centers may use families, the media, civil service, hospitals, government agencies, and even the military (Martz, 1993)[7]. Combined with the Internet and other explosions of technology, learning may become not just electronic page turning, but a worldwide, interactive, constructive process.
The new cartography depends upon the resources already extant in each community. In Udaipur, one NGO has created “learning cities” which use learning as a way of promoting social cohesion, regeneration and economic development. Such cohesion requires community involvement and can provide local solutions to local challenges” (Bhandari, 1999)[8]. Kakegawa, a small city 200 miles west of Tokyo, declared itself a “city of lifelong learning” in order to promote social cohesion, attract businesses to a safe environment, and engage its citizens in cultural, volunteer, and recreational activities rather than on work alone. At the city level, classrooms and auditoriums are available for city-wide events and self-organized lifelong learning activities in fields such as local history, horticulture, and singing, as well as sporting and cultural activities.
Diversity (especially in cities, the focal point of dramatic change) is a resilient force that provides students with adaptability and perspective. New learning communities will create opportunities for students to benefit from the resources that support various means of communication, teamwork, and conflict negotiation.
Resource groups within and beyond the learning community explore the issues and opportunities facing education within the context of community and national goals; assessments are made regarding inequities amongst its citizens; informal and formal learning spaces, institutions, and resources are explored, along with cultural, artistic, religious resources; local knowledge systems and practices are evaluated; organizations and individual supporters are nurtured and included (Longworth, 1996; Shafi, 1996)[9]’ [10].
Such models require new visions of educators as practitioners who discover and develop multiple methodological approaches by looking around their communities, rather than limiting their sight to their classrooms. Finally, such models require the use of the internet as a source of professional development, as well as content aggregation and adaptation to fit changing needs and solve problems. Twelve years after the Delors’ report, Web 2.0 technologies open up new possibilities. The internet itself has evolved from broadcast-only knowledge dissemination to interactive knowledge creation and adaptation and localization. It is interesting to note how such ab evolution converges with excellent teaching which, in turn, requires a new garden in which to plant its seeds.
Table 2. Web 2.0 and Excellent Teaching 2.0
Teachers Without Borders[11] was founded in 2000 to close the education divide by connecting teachers to information and each other. We focus on professional training for teachers and enable them to play a vital role in their communities. At 59 million, teachers are the largest professionally-trained group in the world. They know who is sick or missing or orphaned by AIDS. Teachers can recognize who is at risk for human trafficking or a military gang. We recognize the extraordinary power of teachers to transform their communities and, for that matter, their learning environments. In a world where basic schooling is inaccessible to over 100 million children, we have observed how NGOs and community-based organizations working in non-formal education have been forced to revision education. They have no other choice.
Teachers Without Borders does not advocate a particular school reform model, per se; however, our research and experience bears out the importance of operationalizing the Delors’ report, measuring its effectiveness against U.N. Millennium Goals.[12] We cannot limit our work to traditional schools alone. We have found ourselves convening conferences of teachers from regions in conflict in abandoned buildings, establishing new models of schools in displaced persons’ camps, building Community Teaching and Learning Centers. We must note the achievements of NGOs such as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee,[13] which began as a women’s literacy circle and has evolved into one of the largest non-formal educational organizations in the world. Clearly, new models are designed around such a new cartography and structure of learning to be, do, know, and live together.
The questions we all face about who we are, what we do, what we know, and how we act together have always been central to questions about our survival on this earth. They are questions the Delors report has been asking for several years. These questions require us also to reexamine teaching and learning and must catalyze us into creating creative vibrant models that stimulate the heart and the head, rather than assuming that schools, in their current stagnated and highly-politicized state, will assume the role.
Learning is all around us, and there are plenty of hands around to help. Let us extend our hand and, in so doing, learn about ourselves. In a world that sits so precariously on the brink of chaos, this should be our most vital task.
REFERENCES
[1] Gould, SJ.
Mismeasure of Man. (1981) W.W. Norton & Company, New York
[2] Gardiner, H. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons. (1993) Basic Books, New York
[3] Levine, L. “Whole Systems Design (WSD): The Shifting Focus of Attention and the
Threshold Challenge.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 34. No. 3, 1998
[4] Delors, J. Learning: The Treasure Within. (1996) UNESCO Paris, France
[5] U.N.E.S.C.O. Worldwide Conference on Education,Ahmed, H. (1992). “The contribution of
education to culture development in Asia and the Pacific.” 43rd session. Geneva.
[6] Owen, H. (1996). Open space technology. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
[7] Martz, L. (1993). Making schools better: how parents and teachers across the country
are taking action – and how you can too. New York: Times Books.
[8] Bhandari, V. (1999). “Draft project concept paper: Udaipur as a learning city.”
Shikshantar: The People’s Institute for Rethinking Education and Development.
Rajasthan, India.
[9] Longworth, N. (1996). “Creating and building learning communities.” European Lifelong
Learning Initiative: France.
[10] Shafi, S. (1996). “The ‘third wave’ option.” Seminar: New Delhi. Vol. 445. Sept.
[11] Teachers Without Borders: www.teacherswithoutborders.org; www.twblive.org
[12] MDG Monitor: http://www.mdgmonitor.org/story.cfm?goal=2
[13] Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee: www.brac.org
Fred Mednick
Konrad Glogowski
stephanieknox
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