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Have discussions with your staff, your peers, your students and your parents about what the purpose of education is – Sean Slade
Sean Slade, Senior Director of Global Outreach, ASCD raised a very important question during his session – “Ask what you want from an education system in your school, in your neighbourhood, your state.”
Teeing off, Sean Slade of ASCD, declared that he strongly believed there was too much focus on the minutiae of education and less on the rationale, the reason, and the purpose of education. “I want you to have discussions with your staff, your peers, your students and your parents about what the purpose of education is,” he urged. “When was the last time you had a conversation with your staff about why they became teachers, why they became educators. When was the last time that you had a conversation about why you entered this profession?
I would imagine that most of you entered this profession not because you had a love of algebraic formula, or because you wanted to make sure that every student has 60 minutes of homework every night in high school. I imagine that most of you entered this profession because you wanted to make a difference,” he declared, adding, “You understand that education is one of the best drivers to make a difference, not only individual but also collectively. So I ask you to take a step back from focussing on the details. The details are not wrong. The details are what make you a great teacher but the details are effective if you know where you want to get to. Focussing on the details makes you focus on minutiae – small elements as opposed to the big picture. Take a step back, look at the panorama. What are we trying to get out of education?”
He went on to discuss what become the ‘trees’ in the ‘educational forest’, which we focus on over time. “The most obvious one, the one that’s been dictating our lives in the United States of America where I’m based, has been testing. We have become a nation that is being dictated by the tests, the timetables, the yearly plans. Whether a teacher gets a pay raise, whether a school stays open or not is defined by the testing regime. So then teachers become experts in teaching to the tests.” He added that the others ‘trees’ include curriculum, qualifications, class time, professional development activities, technology usage, unit plan, budgeting, social-emotional learning or STEM, arts Vs sciences, project-based learning Vs rote learning.
“I’m not saying these things are wrong because they’re not but unless we know where we want to get to, then everything that we are becoming experts in is irrelevant. What is the purpose of education? Why do we subject our children, our youth, to 12 or more years of schooling?”
Sharing his personal experience of working with ASCD, Slade spoke about working with primary schools in Oakland during the years when schools were being closed if they didn’t give the right scores. Children were taught three hours of English, followed by three hours of Mathematics to the exclusion of all else. They then brought a group of leading educators, health professionals together to discuss whether this was the right direction. The question put before them was: If we put a child at the centre of the equation – not the test-taking regime, not the Board studies, not the budget – what would that education look like?
Saying no to the huge profits that would come by jumping headlong into the testing business and currying favour with politicians, they stuck to their inherent belief – “Education is essential not only to develop the cognitive but to develop what we call the whole child – socially, emotionally, physically, mentally, civically, spiritually as well as cognitively.” That led to the launching of the whole child approach to education, which they focus all of their work around.
“We believe that a whole child is one that is knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically inspired, engaged in the arts, prepared for work and economic self-sufficiency and ready for the world beyond formal schooling. What is that quote from China that they used – ‘Good at tests, bad at life’. How many of our students are good at tests but cannot survive in life.”
Slade went on to make an extremely significant point – that what we want for our children is the same globally, whether it’s parents, community agencies, school teachers, or principals. “If we want children to be open, happy, resilient, curious, empathetic, sustaining, and careful, what are we doing in our schools to help them get there? I would recommend you to go back to your schools and have the same conversation,” he averred.
Pointing out that critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, civic participation, and health indicators should be the goal of public education, he added, “We believe in education because people can better themselves, a society can better itself, but what they need even more so this century are relationship skills.”
The change, he believes, is already setting in, whether it’s Harvard which is looking at changing their acceptance of students to take into account contributions to others, public service, community service, ethical engagement – with less focus on academics only. Add to this, Boston College, Columbia, MIT, Michigan State, University of Pennsylvania, Yale and similar examples in India as well which are also responding to the change. “Wouldn’t you want to teach in a school that is surrounded by positivity and happiness as opposed to purely test-taking?” he reiterated. “Ask what you want from an education system in your school, in your neighbourhood, your state. Ask what society wants. Ask what your children need from an educational system, ask what the world needs because we not only have a responsibility to an individual child, not only to the neighbourhood, not only to society but the world is getting smaller and we have a responsibility to develop citizens. You are responsible for the next generation.”
He summed up, “What I hope you take away from this talk is an understanding or appreciation which you need to pat yourselves on the back because you and your teachers play a huge role in society. But every now and then take a step back and think ‘What am I doing this for and am I hitting the same goals?’ Thank you for the work that you do,” Slade concluded, leaving his listeners with plenty to mull over.