Cashman - Theme Response

Change. Education needs to change, students need to change, and schools need to change. We, as educators, have heard all of this before. The parents, politicians, and media outlets of the country have found new and interesting ways of displaying their perceivable dissatisfaction with the country's education system. This blogger hopes to temper the emotions of those who tear down education rather than build it up, and offer a new word to be thrown into the lexicon of educational criticism: adaptation.

Adaptation is a unifying theme that permeates the 21st Century Skills text. The authors, regardless of the chapter, have voiced a unified opinion that education needs to adapt, not totally change, to the challenges it currently faces. How do schools meet that challenge? Chapters 2,7,and 11 off three different plans with comparable methods.

Ms. Darling-Hammond offers a suggestions that denotes a gap between what students know and what they need to know. The core of the chapter deals with thinking skills and how students need to develop a greater strength regarding cognitive thinking: students have to work at figuring things out. In preparing this century's students educators are tasked with preparing them for an economy full of jobs that are yet to exist. How? Darling-Hammond asserts the notion that a sense of continuity need be adapted by schools systems; basically, chose a path and stick with it. The American educational system lacks continuity.

Along with a sense of direction there must come a map to follow. The so called "map" mentioned in Chapter 7 deals with a theme of guidance that America needs. The system needs a curriculum and assessment system that truly challenges a student's preparedness and knowledge. The context of a student's learning needs to be practical and applicable to the workplace thus resulting in a more prepared individual ready to enter the workforce.

The American educational system needs a rudder; like a ship on an ocean, one can't function without one. The unifying themes that permeate the text is that student preparedness needs to increase and a rate that is consummate with an ever-changing global economy.