Those who know me know how much I love to read. I've always been a bibliophile. In fact, when I was in fourth grade I read the 1948 World Book Encyclodpaedia, cover to cover (it was Christmas Break and I was bored...). As a voracious reader, I don't limit myself and this has lead me to some great things intellectually.
There are 3 books I strongly urge all teachers and prospective teachers to read:
1) The Quality School by Dr. William Glasser,
2) Focus, by Dr. Mike Schmoker, and
3) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
The first two I consider essential works in the cannon, and I will write more on these in future posts. But what about the third title, Brave New World? Surely, you say, that's as antique a work of science fiction as can be, saving Verne and Welles. What could possibly be of use to a teacher, there? It's a warning of what a society dedicated to uniformity can be.
The world that Huxley imagined is completely stratified and directed. There are no 'rough edges' anywhere. Your position in life is determined in utero (no natural pregnancies here-babies are gestated in factories from genetic stock in inventory). The world is one vast factory complex, everyone knows the things needed for their position and nothing else. Enter John Savage. I'll let you find out what happens.
The point here is that we are already well on our way to this kind of world. When we decided that every student must know the same things at the same age levels we started on that journey to the Abyss. Huxley's world demands clear cut limits and definitions, and a rigidly controlled and defined system of education. The state determines what is to be known, how it is to be known and when. Look at the "progress" we've made in the last 20 years.
We're 2/3 of the way to our Brave New World.
Kids are not widgets, teachers are not line workers, and schools are not assembly lines
Read your post on Linkedin and came here to read your blog on the matter. I like how your blogs are written with a thinking-out-loud sort of stream of consciousness. I love the Glasser suggestion. He's often cited in educational research. I wish you had spent more time there than on the Brave New World analogy. Educational systems may be moving slowly to differenciate instruction properly, adopt a service-delivery approach and release the behaviorist-induced Factory model, and it may not buy-into the notion that its output is more suited for 19th century economies... but once you zoom out and view the work beyond K-12 schooling, there's a GLOBALIZATION that will never enable extreme uniformity. There's just SO MUCH going on in so many directions in all aspects of life now that "ABUNDANCE" in choices may be more of an emminent issue than "Uniformity." Anyway, cheers. Keep blogging. (here's mine http://drwilliamwashington.com/)
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