Change (the Education System) or Die

What if you were presented with this choice: Change your habits or you will surely die. You'd change, right? Actually, only 1 out of 9 people would, according to research that is summarized at this excellent article at FastCompany.com.

Alan Deutschman relates the story of how people's inherent resistance to change extends even to those decisions that they know will profoundly impact their lives. While the start of the article details the fact that the vast majority of health issues in the U.S. are related to personal choices people make (eating, exercise--or lack thereof, smoking, drinking) he deftly weaves that story into the difficulty that businesses face in changing their corporate cultures.

And education? It's safe to say that in many ways we face the same challenges--and resistance to change--that face corporations today. An industrial model of education that hasn't changed in 90+ years is often cited as something that needs to profoundly change in order to face the challenges of the future. But do we? We do not.

The problem, according to several sources cited in this story, is the notion of frames of reference--our inherent human inability to accept new ideas that don't fit into our carefully constructed idea of the way the world works. What's needed is a leadership vision that speaks to our human emotions and our need to reframe ideas in ways that make sense.

Howard Gardner, a cognitive scientist, MacArthur Fellow "genius" award winner, and professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, has looked at what works most effectively for heads of state and corporate CEOs. "When one is addressing a diverse or heterogeneous audience," he says, "the story must be simple, easy to identify with, emotionally resonant, and evocative of positive experiences.

For education then the challenge of the coming years will not necessarily be to devise new systems, new high-stakes tests, or new organization structures to address the needs of our students. The real challenge will be to frame the need for change in a way that speaks to the parents and teachers of our students. To help them understand that the continued success of our very nation depends on creating a workforce and citizens that will carry on the long traditions of excellence that marks our country's past. To look for the positive effects that educational reform can bring and show how change will maintain our success and lead to even greater accomplishments in the future. In other words, we must place the need for change in positive light and speak to the opportunities ahead of us and the ways that change can make things happen.

That's a tall challenge for many educational institutions and their leaders.

via Stephen Downes' OLDaily.

PREV page

NEXT page