Teaching for America? Teaching for the World!

Tom Friedman’s op-ed in the New York Times, “Teaching for America,” is yet another cry for major reform of our education system, but this time with a twist: for the sake of national security. As Friedman writes: “When I came to Washington in 1988, the cold war was ending and the hot beat was national security and the State Department. If I were a cub reporter today, I’d still want to be covering the epicenter of national security – but that would be the Education Department.”

Why national security? Because, as President Obama says, whoever “out-educates us today is going to out-compete us tomorrow.” But not only do we need to reform education for economic national security, apparently we also need to reform education for military national security. Friedman quotes Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who said, “One of the more unusual and sobering press conferences I participated in last year was the release of a report by a group of top retired generals and admirals. Here was the stunning conclusion of their report: 75 percent of young Americans, between the ages of 17 to 24, are unable to enlist in the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit.” Later in the essay, Friedman quotes Duncan again when he points out that in South Korea “they refer to their teachers as ‘nation builders.’”

Another expert Friedman quotes is Tony Wagner, author of “The Global Achievement Gap,” who explains it this way. “There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate.”

I basically agree with this last statement, though I wouldn’t limit those three skills as essentials for thriving in the “knowledge economy.” To me they are essentials in the most important work each one of us needs to embrace: contributing to innovative solutions for a world in crisis. These skills must be taught in part to enable the next generation to thrive in the knowledge economy, but more importantly to be solutionaries for a healthy, just and thriving world.

I was with Wagner until Friedman quoted him again. Apparently Wagner thinks we should create a West Point for teachers: “We need a new National Education Academy, modeled after our military academies, to raise the status of the profession and to support the R.& D. that is essential for reinventing teaching, learning and assessment in the 21st century.”

The military analogy threw me, because the grave threats we face are global, not national. Our economies are inextricably entwined. Our environments are interconnected and interdependent. “Nation-building” and “competing for jobs” are ultimately going to be outmoded schemas in a world in which collaboration and mutual problem-solving are required to avert catastrophes. A military analogy is exactly the wrong one for our educational crisis. Nation-building is a 20th, not a 21st century vision for educational goals.

But Friedman is right when he focuses much of his essay on teachers. It is teachers who will prepare a generation of solutionaries, or not. It is teachers who will instill critical and creative thinking skills among their students, or not. It is teachers who will find ways to infuse their curricula with meaning, importance, and relevancy (despite the standardized tests their students must pass that largely lack these attributes), or not. And Arne Duncan is right to seek to emulate those countries whose teachers were all in the top third of their colleges and who are paid good salaries for their high-status professions. This, more than anything, will help.

But until we decide what we’re educating the next generation for, we will still flounder. Are we educating a generation simply to compete in the global economy or to build our nation? Or are we educating a generation of solutionaries who collaborate, communicate, and think critically and creatively to solve the grave challenges of our world?

Let’s not just cover the new and exciting “education beat.” Let’s define what it’s for.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and The Power and Promise of Humane Education

Image courtesy of marcokalmann via Creative Commons.

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