Changing the world forever for better

SUGGESTING SCHOOLS TRANSFORM

by Eric Chaet

In this time of constantly changing technologies, it’s not just children and adolescents who need education, but adults do, too.

Not every child or adolescent realizes that she or he needs education, and not every adult realizes it, either.

Some teachers are especially knowledgeable, and sensitive to their students’ struggles, and good at presenting what needs to be learned — while other teachers don’t really know a lot that is true and useful, and aren’t sensitive to students’ struggles, or caring, and aren’t good communicators.  

The best teachers are among the most valuable people alive, and terribly underpaid.  The worst teachers are worse than useless.

True history, which is very rare, is always valuable.  To the extent that you understand what your situation is emerging from, you can cope with it better, and emerge more on your own terms.  

Likewise, if you are lucky enough to encounter someone who can help you develop your ability to think clearly about yourself and what you encounter and hear about, to understand, communicate, analyze, calculate, plan, manipulate natural materials and mechanisms and energy-flows, to transact agreements, to cope with people who aren’t trying to cooperate with you.  These are valuable and timeless.

But much is not timeless — it’s timely, or it’s not in time.  Adults are better off understanding telecommunications technologies, commerce, finance, government and corporate bureaucratic protocols — not just children and adolescents.  

They weren’t taught what is useful, or even necessary, for them to know now, when they were in school.  Furthermore, if they catch up now, and stop, they’ll soon be behind again.  

Our schools are the products of the industrialization of farming in the late 19th century, and the great migration of Europeans into the USA, then, too.  

It was thought (so I’ve read) by those who had the most influence on those who had the authority to tax and spend, that it would be a good idea to teach urban youths how to be useful in the industrial economy (punctual, obedient, persevering), and to teach them to be loyal to the government, which these allocators of resources controlled.

Our schools still have the mission, mainly, of preparing children and adolescents for better futures than they would face without schools.  Sometimes, in various ways and to various degrees, schools are succeeding in that mission, and in some ways and degrees, they’re failing.  That’s so from class to class, pupil to pupil, teacher to teacher, administrator to administrator, school to school, and school district to school district.

But schools need also to make understanding and knowledge available to the adults of the community.  I’m not talking about building more buildings or even hiring new staff — though maybe retraining staff would be necessary — maybe retraining them to do other than school work, to their own advantage.

Schools need to match those who know, and know how to share what they know, with those who need to know — whatever someone’s age.  And not just once, but again and again, over the years.  Sometimes you could be the teacher, sometimes the student.

I hope that this article will be read by a few of the participants of Sept. 27’s annual school board meeting, before it begins.  But I don’t expect any immediate action.  Immediate action would almost surely be based on misunderstanding — enthusiasm without sufficient respect for the necessity of considering obstacles, and planning — a time-consuming process.  

What I am suggesting is a major transformation of how we conceive of our schools, and of how they will be operated from when we begin to transform them, for at least as long as we live, and beyond.  

If there are costs, there can be compensating reductions in costs.  I’m not suggesting an excuse to raise taxes.  

Much can be done by volunteers, and by requesting (but not requiring — so as not to exclude those whose need is greatest) small fees — and by soliciting contributions of effort or funds.

At a school board meeting a year or 2 ago, I suggested that training in digital skills be made available to adults.  I was surprised to see that both the school board’s minutes and The Wrightstown Area Spirit’s account of this suggestion was that I wanted computer literacy taught to the old folks.   

That’s not what I mean.  Not just minimal skills, though that’s more helpful than nothing — but competence, and even skill beyond competence — enabling initiatives and on-going operations, so that people can thrive and contribute better.  So they don’t have to just become old folks.  

Now, I’m not just talking about digital skills.  I’m talking about understanding and skills of all sorts — but especially adaptation to changing technologies and bureaucratic expectations, demands, and protocols — and opportunities.   

Just as you don’t want to present false information to children or adolescents, so you don’t want to present false information to adults — or waste their time with obsolete skills or incompetence masquerading as useful skills, so that some presenter can think highly of herself or himself.  

It’s always necessary to distinguish real from false, useful from useless, important from trivial, what needs to come first from what can safely be learned later, on your own — which is generally most of everything.

I don’t pretend to have figured out how to go from where our schools are now, to where I am suggesting it would good for them to be.  I hope to set minds going about it.

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–Wrightstown Article #14 © Eric Chaet 2023, used in The Wrightstown (Wisconsin, USA) Area “Spirit” by permission. To use this article in another publication, email Eric Chaet at chaetsarticles@gmail.com.