corbett the answer to common core alternative models of education

| by James Corbett
| `BoilingFrogsPost.com `__
| June 3, 2014

One does not have to scratch very deeply into the surface of pop culture
to see that “schools” are nearly universally portrayed in our culture as
boring, stultifying, prison-like environments where students have to
struggle to maintain consciousness.

As we examined `last
week `__,
this state of affairs is not the result of random happenstance or a
failure of the government to throw enough money at the problem, but a
structural feature of the modern education system that was consciously
constructed by the industrial robber barons and financial giants of the
early 20th century, including the Carnegies and the Rockefellers, and
promoted by the politicians under their influence, including Woodrow
Wilson, who, years before coming into office as President of the United
States, delivered a lecture on “ `The Meaning of a Liberal
Education `__ ”
where he stated:

“We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want
another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in
every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit
themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

Sadly, this agenda, to the extent that it had not already been enacted
at the time of Wilson’s speech, has been `fully
realized `__ today.

The next logical step in this agenda is the implementation of Common
Core, a set of educational standards so poor that those tasked with
validating those standards refused to do so. [See
`this `__ and
`this `__ and
`this `__.]

But for those who are opposed to this conception of schooling, the rote
memorization and endless standardized testing, the `introduction of
biosensors `__
and other devices into the classroom to monitor students’ behaviour, the
prolongation of childhood and arbitrary grouping of individuals by age,
the unquestioning obedience to authority that is inherent in the
classroom dynamic, the training for the workforce implicit in the
segregation of tasks into arbitrary work periods, the Pavlovian
conditioning of the bell, what is the alternative? What can be
positively proposed as a counterbalance to this palpably destructive
form of modern day schooling?

This is not a rhetorical question, it is a very real question that has
real answers in the real world. One clue as to an alternative system can
be found in the Netherlands, where the prestigious University of
Groningen, celebrating its 400th anniversary this year, is establishing
a new `University College Groningen `__ that
promises to challenge preconceptions about schooling, education, and the
learning environment. One of the professors helping to establish the UCG
curriculum is `Tjeerd Andringa `__, an
Associate Professor in Sensory Cognition who will be leading a course on
the intersection of geopolitics and cognition that will push the
boundaries of content and form of education.
Another professor who attempted to provide a challenging, radical,
anti-establishment learning environment of self-directed education was
`Denis Rancourt `__, who, in his
tenured position at the University of Ottawa, experimented with a course
on activism in society until railroaded out of the university by
threatened bureaucrats and administrators. In 2011 he `appeared on The
Corbett
Report `__
to discuss his experience.

There is no one set method for education. Every child is different; each
will learn in their own way, respond to challenges and tasks in
different manners; benefit from different approaches and different
levels of outside input and self-direction. But that is the real task of
education; not teaching children to memorize names, dates and figures
out of a textbook and regurgitate them on the test paper, but to
understand who they are as individuals, what they can contribute to the
world, and how to connect with those around them. There are classrooms
around the world where these experiences are a core part of the
education environment, as well, and in very rare instances, as in the
case of Toshiro Kanamori’s fourth grade class in Kanazawa, Japan,
followed throughout the year by NHK’s cameras in 2003 for `a remarkable
documentary `__,
the results are as powerful as they are undeniable.

For parents, teachers, school administrators and others who have a
genuine concern about the Common Core approach to education, it is
important to note that there are educational alternatives out there.
Alternatives that have nothing to do with larger school budgets,
rewritten textbooks or biometric scanners in the classroom. Alternatives
that are not funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or evaluated
on a standardized testing regime that rewards rote memorization.
Alternatives that encourage children to become an active part of their
own education, and shape their own course toward adulthood. But do the
American public, or indeed the public of the world, have the courage to
explore these alternatives, or will they lay down yet again and give in
to the institutional inertia of the status quo?