Humanizing the Education Machine. Cahill Brian

just rolled over too many teachers, mashing the life juices right out of their pores.

      I'll tell you something else – by the time they graduate 60 percent of students will have also flown the coop. This is not some abstract number: these are the kids on your block, next door, and maybe in your upstairs bedrooms.

      Public education does what it was designed to do. And in a previous era, that served America very well. With the passing of that era the model has become obsolete.

      We all know that we live in perilous times. But, more than that, we live in the crumbling ruins of obsolete forms. An age is passing away (as ages always do). Don Berwick famously said, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” The prevalent model of public education does what it was designed to do. And in a previous era, that served America very well. With the passing of that era the model has become obsolete.

      For that reason, the Education Machine is in genuine and panoramic crisis; it is in personal, social, economic, and national turmoil. Numbers don't lie. But that crisis is because of its obsolescence, not its malice.

      Here are a few other features of its rot.

      ● The Education Machine does not have the capacity to care. And learning requires people who care.

      ● The Machine's continual cry of “reform” results in kicking the can down the road for future administrators and teachers to solve. This response only makes matters worse and costs a hell of a lot of money.

      ● We can't wait. We cannot let the Education Machine move another kid down its aged and rusty assembly line until they are broken or left behind. Now is already late.

      So, how did we end up with an education system that has not only failed in its mission but has also inflicted so much psychological, emotional, and intellectual damage on so many people that it touches? But, far more important, what can we do about it now?

      Now, let's pause and consider some other realities that our work on this book revealed:

      ● Yes, education has become a Machine. But schools, administrators, and teachers can create a kid-centered, human-enriching, and high-achieving learning experience.

      ● It takes stepping into only one classroom of engaged kids to see the difference between the Machine and the deeply human experience of learning.

      ● The challenge of education sounds formidable. But it can be brought down to a human scale and transformed through people who care.

      Cynicism says we can't change what must be changed. That is not true; we can do something about it. This is not an impossible task. That is what this book is about. When you finish reading, you will know the time and money invested in this book was well worth the price. We can change the way we teach and train our younger members. Do not forget that.

      Cynicism says we can't change what must be changed. That is not true; we can change the way we teach and train our younger members. Do not forget that.

      I know what I'm talking about. Over the past two years, my associates and I have traveled thousands of miles and talked to hundreds of students, teachers, administrators, parents, suppliers, authors, and community leaders. We heard their stories of life in the Education Machine. Their time in education was, for too many, a soul-sucking, time-wasting, and stress-producing waste of effort. Not only that, it was a brutally demotivating and damaging experience.

      But we also saw transformation. One of the most surprising features of our work was the discovery of fully absorbed, completely riveted students located clear across the K–12 spectrum; we met them in great cities and in small towns, in both “underserved” and resource-rich districts, and scattered across all the data points.

      To Humanize the Education Machine

      Most people know that the earth's surface is composed of tectonic plates – “a dozen or so big crustal slabs that float on a sea of melted rock… The colliding plates grind past one another about as fast as fingernails grow..”1 As the plates grow, they break off, creating convulsions of new geologic features. Despite its deadly earthquakes and tsunamis, that process, that revolution, is quite natural and essential to the continuation of life on planet earth.

      But isn't it also true that the ideas, values, and structures that form civilizations are in perpetual, grinding revolution? That's how they exchange old and dying forms for new life. The life cycles of the planet exist in continuous, and sometimes quite literal, uprisings. The convulsions of history continually heave old forms over the side, where they slip into oblivion. Of course, individuals, groups, and nations work very hard to find ways to take credit for the upheavals.

      This book is a manifesto for a secret, but emerging, revolution.

      That revolution is challenging public education's grip over the future and well-being of our kids. We all see the relatively small, but very visible, part of that conflict among policy makers, educators, unions, parents, politicians, and a voracious educational industrial complex. They are all pounding their fists, demanding change, pointing fingers, expanding control, pleading for more funding, and continually changing the rules with no measurable improvement. That war has raged for the past 60 years. Most have fought with good intent; many were and are mercenaries; and some have tried to leverage the dysfunction to gain more power and profit. It doesn't matter; they are all caught in a conflict of irrelevance. It is all part of an era that is passing away.

      Today, we all stand before a window of opportunity that recalls Apple's “1984” Super Bowl Ad. That landmark “manifesto” proclaimed the end of Big Brother computing and the dawn of a human-centered experience. As it was then, our highly centralized industrial education system is increasingly arthritic and exhausted. Worse, its death grip is killing creativity – in our kids and in our nation. The mission of this book is to spread hope and methods to parents, educators, administrators, and communities so they may become full partners in the human-centered learning revolution.

      Everyone knows the current system is failing to graduate students who are prepared for the demands of the twenty-first century. The United States ranks last among industrialized nations for college graduation levels. Other countries with similar education models are experiencing the same fall out in student engagement and performance. Germany, England, China, Singapore, South Korea, France, Australia, Canada, Japan, and other countries are stepping back and asking the same questions we asked about the effects of their education machines.

      Today's oracles, such as Sir Ken Robinson, Tony Wagner, Douglas Thomas, John Seely Brown, and others are painting vividly clear pictures of a harsh system that is killing creativity at the very time in history that most demands creativity and innovation! They are the most important survival skills in a postindustrial world.

      The book explains how the “Gutenberg to Google” revolution has generated a perfect storm of discontent, dysfunction, and disengagement in our traditional system of education.

      While the policy debates and shifting priorities continue to keep schools off-balance and parents in the dark we have a crisis that won't wait.

      This book announces that we stand at a true “Oh, my God” moment in history. The numbers tell a story that can no longer be ignored. In addition to the disengagement numbers already cited, half of all students are considered “at risk.” More than 25 percent of students live in poverty. 1.36 million students are homeless. None of this is a secret. Yet the system cannot or will not budge.

      After 60 years of studies, we don't have time for more research, reform measures, or debate. The revolution has already started. It is even now overthrowing an obsolete industrial regime, structure, and set of values.

      That's why we need a manifesto, not another proposal. After 60 years of studies, we don't have time for more research, reform measures, or debate. The revolution has already started. It is now overthrowing an obsolete industrial regime, structure, and set of values. That insurgency will reclaim learning as a fundamentally human experience. Gutenberg enabled the first learning revolution more than 500 years ago. Google now symbolizes the new one. Digital technology is disrupting traditional power

1

William J. Broad, “Deadly and Yet Necessary, Quakes Renew the Planet,” New York Times (January 11, 2005), www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/science/deadly-and-yet-necessary-quakes-renew-the-planet.html? _r=0.