Does anyone else find this interesting...? As I am reading many books on the 21st century this summer, I keep finding myself asking, why are we in 2011 finally discussing how to teach 21st learners eleven years too late? Isn't this something that should have been discussed in the late 90s early 2000s? Also, shouldn't colleges be teaching this style?
Maybe I am wrong and schools have been discussing this since the 90s, and I only have been teaching since 2008. I just think this is backwards...
Teachers, academics, and politicians have certainly been discussing education reform since the 1980s and 1990s, though labels and philosophies have changed.
ReplyDeleteRonald Reagan commissioned a report called “A Nation at Risk” that advanced the idea that America’s education system was failing. While it cited miserable test scores to paint a highly negative picture of America’s educational system, it did force Reagan to back off on his campaign idea of completely abolishing the federal Education Department. To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t want to drastically cut education while also advocating for drastic improvements.
http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html
In the 1990s, Bill Clinton signed Goals 2000: The Educate America Act which enacted educational goals for the nation to reach by the year 2000. It also defined national standards for education that paved the way for and was eventually replaced by No Child Left Behind in 2001.
http://www.tecweb.org/eddevel/telecon/de99.html