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Perspective: A ready-to-work education system

Software Industry

While there are many issues with our current system of education, perhaps none is more destructive than the acquisition of "knowledge" over the development of skill. Our system is based on a structure scholars decided on in the 1890s with the intention of developing more scholars. There was no connection between education and the world of work. Society has changed dramatically since then, yet we remain married to an arcane educational model, which doesn't meet the needs of modern society or modern learners.

Shouldn't our compulsory education system create the skills necessary for 21st century success? If they were properly focused on skill building and their interests were taken into account, all students could leave high school with job-ready skills.

Current standards have created the belief that every student needs essentially the same education. The standards tell us everyone needs to know about literature, chemistry, biology, math, etc., but we suggest that there are no subjects critical to every student. There are, however, fundamental skills that students must master in order to become productive adults. Every child should leave school able to read, calculate, think critically, solve problems, craft compelling arguments and work with others. A right-headed curriculum would focus on the development of key skills and leave the subject matter to the interest and curiosity of each child.

It's time for a completely new approach to curriculum — a more holistic, interdisciplinary, vocational, experiential and pragmatic approach.

Imagine a student with an interest in science and medicine who participates in a curriculum on medical diagnosis. He plays the role of a resident at a regional hospital. All of his tasks in the curriculum are the same as those of a real medical resident. He must see patients and identify their symptoms, research those symptoms, make diagnoses, understand the anatomy affected by a patient's illnesses, communicate the diagnoses and treatment options to patients, and report to supervisors. He spends every day digging into cases and working with a small team of his peers. Together they think through tough problems, write up their findings and troubleshoot when treatments don't have anticipated effects.

Imagine a student with an interest in computers and technology. She participates in a curriculum on software development, in which she plays the role of a software developer tasked with building real programs for real clients. She starts out small — interviewing clients and learning HTML programming as she builds websites that meet her clients' specifications. Once she has mastered these easy projects she moves on to more complicated requests and programming languages. By the time she graduates from high school, she knows several programming languages and has a portfolio of websites, programs and apps she has built. She has experience working on a team. She can interview clients, understand their requests, manage their projects, report status, and deal with them as they change their minds and their requirements. She can think, plan, problem-solve and troubleshoot.

Students shouldn't be forced into any subject, but instead should pursue what they care about. If they try software development and decide it's not for them, they can move on to something else. They can try engineering, graphic design, management, small business ownership, accounting, child care or sales. They can move between curricula until they find their niche. In each curriculum they're learning to write, work on a team, research, problem solve, predict, and communicate and it's all transferable; the skills they learn in one curriculum are core to all.

Compulsory education should be about building more responsible citizens. It should be about helping kids find their gifts and capitalize on talents. It should be about eliminating social dependency and building a skilled population ready to make a contribution.

Fundamentally changing education is a massive undertaking and admittedly, there are obstacles, not the least of which are education's biggest stakeholders. Some people will be afraid of making this change; afraid of how it will affect them. But a skill-based approach will, without question, benefit more students than our current system.

So we begin where student needs are unmet. We begin where concerned parents want a better option than what currently exists. We begin where passionate educators are fed-up with preparing their students for a test. Making this change will be a lot of work, but our kids, our city and our future are worth the effort.

Michael McGarry is the president of Socratic Arts, an education reform company.

Lisa Christensen is senior vice president of Socratic Arts.

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