TRUTH Thoughts II ... the System is Broken
There is a certain rhythm to life that tends to order things and make them the way they are. For example, people falling into what most consider the “lower class” earn their way in life through manual labor. Those in the “middle class” earn their way through their intellect. Those in the top or highest class generally earn their way through their intellect and resources.
Absolutely there are exceptions, but they are few. I saw a podcast recently, by Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) where he introduced one such exception. His name is Todd Rose, and he was the classic misfit, odd ball, or impossible to categorize, one-in-a-million individual. But this is not where the story begins.
This story is actually about our broken and out-of-date public education system. It is a system that has its roots in the Industrial Age when a handful of wealthy individuals decided what public schools should look like and how they should be run. Their model, what had worked for them that made them exceptionally wealthy for the time, was the standardization and production line of the factory.
Few of us have heard of Fredrick Taylor but he is known as the father of Scientific Management and his four principles of improving efficiency and productivity in industrial workplaces. Among other things, he contributed to different works, such as Managers and Workers, rhetorical techniques, scholarly debate about increased efficiency moving pig iron at Bethlehem’s Iron and Steel, management theory, and relations with ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers). He published several books on topics such as Shop Management, Scientific Management, and Efficiency in the Workplace. In doing so, he laid the foundation of our public school system today.
In the democracy established by our forefathers it was widely understood that institutions served people. Taylor turned this thinking around and said that in the future the systems must be first. As a result, they denigrated individuality, suggesting that people are interchangeable parts.
Now back to Todd Rose. He flunked out of high school, leaving when he did with a 0.97 GPA, but is now a professor at Havard. His community, where he grew up, prized conformity over everything else, and this just did not fit him. He bounced around the jobs he could get without a high school education, because he got bored.
He finally decided on the advice of his father, to go back to school, get his GED and then go on to college. His salvation was finding the Honor’s Program and the different learning environment it offered. His best advice ...” If you want this, don’t give up.” He graduated as the Honor Student of the year. Conclusion ... Finding a good fit! It is your responsibility, and it matters how we help each other.
It is all about fit, and our place in the world. We have standardized too much and put people in categories. This is just not working today. We must find new paths and approaches. AI is one of these promising paths to evaluate students and help them find their fit or pathway sooner.
Follow me this week to discover more TRUTHS on this subject and explore options and alternatives. I promise that it will get you thinking in new ways!
