Changes in Education: Are we going in the right Direction?

I have always talked about the similarities between business Models and the educational system. Businesses and large corporations are known for their innovation and their constant changing with the times. Our students in the educational system will eventually work in these ever changing environments, yet the educational system has been stagnant since the industrial revolution. We are expecting different results, with the same solution. Now I am a proponent for some of the traditional educational techniques like, but I am also very much for the new wave of educational reform. In just about any other profession or career path, you can look at the foundations and see a vast difference. For example, in medicine, there were interesting ways to cure diseases and ailments that are no longer used because of the advancement of technology, research and inventions. Yet again, our educational system has not completely changed despite there being new evidence, research and science to say that there needs to be a change. 

Shortly after leaving the educational field, I was a business manager for a small boutique real estate company. In our weekly meetings, we would talk about the changes not only in the real estate business, but within the company to stay competitive. It then occurred to me as I learned about the business world that there is a fast changing environment that has to keep up with the times. 

There is also the reality that Americans that attend education have changed significantly since the introduction of our education system. It is projected that by 2050, people of color will outnumber white Americans and students of color already make up the majority of students in America, yet our educational system still has foundations from European education. This brings up the controversial discussions of Critical Race theory and Culturally responsive Teaching. Although that topic is not discussed on this blog, we can see that education should shift based on the people that it is supposed to serve. Whether that is incorporating more equitable practices within your school to be more inclusive, or allowing your school to have a required Ethnic History course for our future leaders of the country to understand the nuances of different cultures, it is imperative to shift our school system to meet the needs of ALL students, not just the original students it was intended for. The opposition for significant change within the educational system has many critics, many of which are concerned about the watering down of content to cater to all students. If this were true, I would be concerned as well, especially since many of our schools already struggle with required skills like critical thinking and higher-order processing skills. 

In my time at Moonshot EdVetures, an innovative nonprofit designed for educators of color that would like to create their own schools or school programs, I had the privilege of meeting amazing founders that had amazing ideas for schools and programs. From sports schools to microschools in businesses, the ideas were amazing, utilized new research, the voices of our students, and ideas from successful innovative schools around the country. We were able to visit schools in the Denver and LA areas. We were able to see schools that provided their students with culturally inclusive, high-level education that actually rendered amazing results.