A year ago hedge fund manager and author James Altucher announced in a provocative piece for Yahoo Finance Tech Ticker, “Rethinking College as Student-Loan Burdens Rise”, that college, particularly right after high school, may not be a good investment for most students and their families that often are paying the bill. Says Altucher…

There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that motivated kids are going to make money whether or not they go to college… So teach your kids how to be motivated. Teach your kids how to sell a product, build a network of connections. That’s going to be far more valuable.

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In my previous piece, “What is 21st Century Learning?” I tried to put a context around eleven replies to that question from people identified by Ed Week magazine as thought-leaders in the business of education. That context is the transition in American society, and the wider world (case and point is Egypt and the Arab world in the past month), from external authority to the shared authority of a circle of equals. At this time in our human history, I can think of no more profound thread in our cultural evolution.

In keeping with this developmental thread, it seems appropriate that I go beyond commenting on the thoughts of identified educational authorities on the question, “How Do You Define 21st-Century Learning?”, and put forward my own as a fifty-five year old person and parent of two now young adult children, who has done (and continues to do) his share of formal and informal (that is real life) learning.

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A recent Ed Week online article, “How Do You Define 21st Century Learning”, featured the thoughts of eleven people connected to the US education establishment as teachers, consultants or educrats. I was intrigued how each would frame this topic, relative to my own framing as a parent and more of a many educational paths (including unschooling) advocate. (FYI… to see my own thoughts on this topic click here.)

Here is the article author’s framing of the question…

The term “21st-century skills” is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today’s world. In a broader sense, however, the idea of what learning in the 21st century should look like is open to interpretation — and controversy.

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In my previous blog piece, “Teachers Take Control of a Detroit School”, I got generally positive comments on Daily KOS on the good news this story represented for progressives. One commenter, a former teacher, wished they could have been involved in such a school, while instead…

I taught in secondary schools for sixteen years. I left because I had two choices… 1. Fight constantly with administrators, school boards, district officials et al for the freedom to teach the best possible curriculum with the best possible methodology for the students in my classroom… OR 2. Blindly follow the wishes of all of the above people regarding curriculum and methodology to the detriment of my students… I got tired of fighting and left the profession. I would give anything to teach in a school like this where teachers and students matter more than filling out forms that confirm that standard 12.1.3 Letter H was taught on school day 42.

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Today’s Los Angeles Times piece, “Parents hope to force sweeping changes at Compton school”, highlights a dysfunctional educational venue, McKinley Elementary School in Compton, and a controversial effort by parents to turn it around. Controversial because, without the knowledge of school staff or the school board, parents quietly took the radical action of circulating a petition, based on a new California law, to bring a charter company in to take over running the school. A school dysfunctional perhaps because of a lack of a good governance model that could have kept parents, teachers and even students in touch with each other as school stakeholders to share their concerns.

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So in the United States, is education an obligation or a right? It was in a conversation about education this morning with my brother Peter that he formulated that very basic question. It was synchronistically what I had decided to write about today, but I had not framed the question so crisply.

It is really a poignant question because you can make a compelling argument that it is one, the other or both. I’m really wrestling with what “education” is all about and whose business is it anyway. In Wiktionary the definition is…

1-The process or art of imparting knowledge, skill and judgment
2-Facts, skills and ideas that have been learned, either formally or informally

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I just went through the last week or so of on-line featured articles from the on-line EdWeek edition of Education Week magazine and the Public Education Network. Looking at the state of the US institution of public education for youth from a parent’s point of view, it seems like there is still a fair amount of (to use some nautical metaphors) rearranging deck-chairs and still hoping that the water gushing into those holes in the hull being ripped open by that iceberg can be somehow contained to keep the ship afloat.

This is a very long post and kind of goes on and on trying to paint a snapshot of the public education gestalt in the US right now before I try to end on a very hopeful note.

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Elaborating in responding to comments to my recent blog piece, “When I Stopped Rewarding My Son for Good Behavior”, I expressed the opinion that most kids could readily learn to read and do basic arithmetic, even mostly on their own, if they were not required to learn at a set externally mandated standard age, but instead undertook the effort on their own internal developmental timetable when they were ready and interested in acquiring that skill set. One of my thoughtful commenters took issue with my position, saying…

You think a kid is going to learn long division on her own? Why would she? How could long division ever be interesting enough to typical children that it would at any moment be the most interesting thing they could be doing with their time?

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There was a reposting of a 2006 John Taylor Gatto blog piece, “The Richest Man in the World Has Some Advice for Us about College”, on “The Link”, a homeschooling blog. It caught the attention of a friend who is an artist and musician and happens to also be my daughter’s piano and art teacher, so this friend has a real stake in encouraging people’s innate creativity. She shared the link with all her friends.

Gatto (one of my alternative education “gurus”), is often outrageous and is always the provocateur. But underneath his shock talk (delivered in his signature measured tone), there are some really profound outside-the-box contrarian ideas that I don’t always agree with but I find ever worth consideration.

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As a follow-up to my blog piece, “Left-Libertarianism and a Broader Political Spectrum”, I’m seeing an interesting common ground of sorts emerging between some more libertarian thinkers on both the right and the left sides of that political paradigm in regards to educational policy. As an example, you have both a (right) libertarian like Ron Paul and a progressive educational group like The Forum for Education and Democracy calling for an end to the Federal Department of Education. (Of course Paul’s newly elected Senator son Rand throws a bone to his more homophobic right-wing supporters by arguing for elimination of DOE to prevent lesbian parenting from being promoted in schools.)

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