What I Hope to Accomplish on the FNSBSD Board of Education

What I would like to accomplish on the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District Board of Education:

Put Teachers First:
Teachers need to be free to inspire students to want to study and learn. To the extent teachers are hindered by policy and administration, they cannot inspire students to love learning. Current blanket policies and regulation force teachers, children and the district to conform to a distant, disinterested third party.

Give Parents Control of the School:
We need to decentralize power in the school district and give the schools back to the local communities. Lift borders and restrictions and allow parents and students to choose their school and their classrooms. The district currently spends almost $16,000 per student. Give that funding to each student and let it go to the schools and classrooms that attract those students.

Freedom Education:
The current school system produces obedient, compliant, security minded students who graduate looking for jobs and, increasingly, the jobs are not there. Without jobs, after twelve years of being told WHAT to think, they naturally turn to experts for handouts. On the other hand, individualized Leadership education produces leaders, thinkers, entrepreneurs, inventors, artists and statesmen who know HOW to think and will produce their own jobs.

Classics:
The problems we face today are different than anyone has encountered before, but the process of problem-solving is not. Students need individualized, mentored education, rooted in a deep understanding of history and the classics. Classics produce free individuals who can apply true principles in every situation.

Individualized Education:
Look into the eyes of a child and see if you don't believe that he or she was born to make a difference in the world. Students have a purpose, an individual mission in life for which they need to prepare. They need to be free to study, learn and excel according to their individual genius, with guidance from a mentor. The teachers, free to be mentors, inspire students to establish and execute individual educational goals.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Tomorrow's Leaders and Leadership Education

The problems we face in the world today seem vastly different than the problems we've faced in the past. We have no examples to show us what to expect when we make certain choices. Can we really combine the ideals of liberty found in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence with the large array of services that now seem to be required for modern society and demanded by citizens? The problems we face are new, but the process of problem solving has always been the same. The founding fathers of this nation faced a new problem, stated in the first 'Federalist' article. Hamilton wrote, “...it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country...to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”

The founding fathers were up to the challenge of founding a nation because they had an education that taught them how to think and how to solve problems, even if the problems had never been solved before. The type of education they had has been suppressed almost to extinction. I will introduce you to this type of education as well as two other types of education for comparison. These three types of education are called the Conveyor Belt model, the Professional model, and the Leadership model. I will attempt to explain all three as well as each model's goals, methodology, and curriculum.


Goals of each Educational Model

The first model of education is the Conveyor Belt. Conveyor belt education is used in most public schools and in many private and home schools. The goal of conveyor belt education is job training; it was introduced as job training for the poor. It accomplishes this goal by teaching students what to think. It prepares students to get a job by teaching them to obediently and compliantly do repetitive tasks and has, historically, been very successful at these goals.

The goal of the Professional model is to train an expert by teaching them when to think in their given field. This means that when an expert, such as a doctor is in his field, he is thinking in terms related to that field. If he needs to do something outside of his field, he simply calls on other experts.

The goal of the Leadership model of education is to train leaders by teaching them how to think. This is a leader who knows how to solve problems, who has a deep understanding of what is right and wrong, true and false, good and bad, and has the ability to apply true principles, or self-evident truths in every situation. This is an education that understands that each student has a purpose in life that she needs to prepare for. This is not a new model of education. This is the model of education that the founding fathers had. It is what every great leader in the past has had, and what every great leader in the future needs.

Methodology of each Educational Model

The methodology of a Conveyor Belt education is the soviet conveyor belt. This means if you are in that system you must conform to a certain mold. If you fall behind, the teacher spends more time with you and the administration spends more money because they want no child left behind. If you get ahead, they leave you alone long enough until you get back in line. There is usually an established class system, 1st grade, 2nd grade and so on until you're a finished product. Then they slap a diploma on your head and turn you out to be sold to the job market.

The methodology of the Professional educational model is the competitive conveyor belt. On the competitive conveyor belt if you get behind, they simply drop you. And here the conveyor belt makes sense. If you're training to be an expert, you must know some things before you should learn other things.

The methodology of the Leadership model is mentoring. A mentor who has a leadership education, or is at least one step ahead asks the student, “What are your dreams, goals, desires, etc.?” and then helps the student prepare a curriculum that is tailored to that student, in line with the life purpose, or life mission of that student.

Curriculum of each Educational Model

The curriculum of a Conveyor Belt education is usually seen as textbooks. Textbooks are actually the secondary curriculum. The primary curriculum is socialization, which is important if you're trying to produce obedient, security-minded workers.

The known curriculum of Professional education is case studies. These are usually packaged like textbooks but students study past and hypothetical cases in their field of expertise. The other half of the curriculum is socialization, but in the professional model they call it 'ethics'. This is what you must do or not do in a given field to be accepted by the others in that field.

The curriculum of the Leadership educational model is classics. A classic is a work that is worth studying again and again and you can learn something from it each time. There are classic books, classic movies, classic works of art, classic music, classic architecture, etc. Something may be a classic for you but not for someone else, only you can know what is a classic for you and what is not. The fundamental difference between leadership education and the other models is that leadership education is individualized.

Conclusion

We live in a nation where childhood education is rooted in the conveyor belt model, and adult education usually in the professional model. Tomorrow's leaders are not being trained in leadership at any time in their schooling. The tragedy of this is that we live in a nation that says, “You be the leaders, you run the government.” Yet we are producing obedient, compliant, security-minded individuals who look to experts to do their thinking. The choice is not between Professional and Leadership education, students can get both. The choice is between the Conveyor Belt and Leadership models.

Take a look into the eyes of your child, grandchild, or other special child in your life and see if you don't regard that child as someone special, someone who was born to make a difference in the world. Ask yourself if that child's current education will prepare them to make that difference. The principles of leadership education applied at every level of schooling and in the life of every person in America, an education rooted in a deep understanding of history and the classics is the education that will produce leaders, thinkers, entrepreneurs, artists, inventors and statesman that know how to think for themselves and will lead the world into and through the 21st century.


*These principles of education are found in "A Thomas Jefferson Education" by Oliver DeMille

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1 comment:

  1. MichaelSeptember 29, 2010 at 2:02 AM

    To the person that identified themselves as EandD. I do not publish comments nor will I answer questions from anonymous posters. If you will identify yourself I will both publish your comments and answer your questions. If for some reason you cannot identify yourself in writing, please call me at 388-1588.

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