Is it really that these goals are truly incompatible, or that we are applying them wrong, expecting an institution to do something that it cannot do? According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, education has four purposes:

1) to enlighten the understanding
2) to correct the temper
3) form the manners and habits of youth
4) fit them for usefulness in their future stations.

To relate this to the article you linked to, the first would deal with this external body of knowledge, 2 and 3 would loosely deal with “socialization” and 4 would perhaps have to do with facilitating the student’s potential. At least is speaks directly to the posted entry’s focus on workforce preparation.

If you take this broader view of what education is, more closely related to the German concept of “Erziehung” which is more commonly translated as “bringing up” and relates directly to the Latin roots of the English word, “education” has to do with the entire process of “bringing up” a child.

All of these aspects are critically important.

The real problem doesn’t really lie in conflicting goals, but in the conflicting interests of those who have control over the process.

At one time, the goals of education were somewhat unified between the home, church and school, giving rise to an education “system” with few real conflicts. Ironically, as our society has diversified, our education system has been increasingly centralized, hoping to achieve through this some sort of standardization of beliefs across cultures.

One goal of education was taken out of its familial context and placed in an institution with competing goals.

Unfortunately, it appears that this blog has stopped being updated, but there is a wealth of information in it from its brief history:

http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/cubedseducationblog/

I haven’t finished reading all the entries, yet, but it is worth starting at the beginning and working your way through.

“If we want to improve our schools, it is with the abstract and awkward realm of ideas that we must first deal.
. . .The particular combination of these ideas that we deploy, governs what we do in schools and what we do to children in the name of education.
Our problems are due to these three ideas each being fatally flawed and being also incompatible with one other.”

That being siad, I have to say the only statement that you quoted that I think was well said was that of the student! She seemed to grasp the situation better than any of the educators, business people or government officials. What does that say!

And I wholly agree, parents and students should have been included in that summit…but I have often found (in my District, at least) that when parents are invited, it is announced within the school community and the only parents made aware are those very involved with the school: PTA officials, parent volunteers beyond class mom who comes in once a week for a few hours, etc. So even then, the conversation is still a closed one in my eyes as many of us average parents are never included, even when education and our children are very dear to our hearts.

And the whole pre-k thing really bothers me, so I won’t even comment on that. I wish all children could stay at home until their 7th birthdays like is so common in many European contries.

Great post!

KidTrax Seamless integration, from cradle to college…but it doesn’t stop there. Our Secretary of Education has been working hard on higher ed and one of the proposals is a tracking system that will follow you to the workforce so that we can see the return on our investment and more effectively hold colleges accountable for how prepared you are for the workforce.

So yeah, manufacturing students along the conveyor belt is a pretty accurate analogy.