New Horizons for Learning: January 2000

With all the discussion about whether the coming year is the end or the beginning of a new millennium, perhaps we should just consider that the a time between ending and beginning anew. Perhaps we can use this time in the history of education by letting go of all that is no longer useful and setting the scene for what may work better. Let us especially consider whole systems and the long range effects of what we decide and do each day.

In a poignant message of protest, Elizabeth Neuman, a 4th-5th grade teacher says:

What began as general guidelines of what children should be taught (benchmarks, learning objectives, early childhood model, frameworks, etc.) has become a centrally controlled, time driven, and thus radical system that flies in the face of child development. The system is built on a number of assumptions about which there has never been a discussion:

That children develop at a standard rate.

That all children have access to experiences that stimulate a certain kind of learning.

That all children arrive in the schoolhouse in a state of emotional well-being, ready to soak up learning and blossom in a specific way at specific times.

That there is something wrong with a child that is not meeting certain standards at a strictly regulated time and that the child should be retained if not on schedule.

That all children will reach the standards without changing any of their life circumstances.

Let's use this time to reexamine the unintended results of well-intended new standards and figure out ways to help teachers and students to achieve them without squelching the joy of teaching and learning.

In our first Journal of the year 2000, there are a few other thoughts about what we could well do without, but many more about guiding principles for this time, new kinds of learning environments, setting the scene for more effective leadership, teaching and learning, and powerful new ways to implement the arts and technology in educational systems.