Design and Deliver
Architects design; contractors deliver. Engineers design; factories deliver. Chorographers design; dancers deliver. “Unknown” designed education; teachers deliver.
The education design you and I experienced as children is basically the same chapter-by-chapter design today. The new chapter is introduced on Monday, reading assignments are given, homework is assigned, lessons are taught, questions are answered, review is on Thursday, the chapter test is on Friday and Saturday is forgetting day. Remembering until summer is a myth.
The scores from the weekly chapter tests are averaged for the report grade – ABCD or F. There are other variations to the system to give students the opportunity to raise the grade – projects, participation, homework, extra credit, and so on.
This is the basic design for K-12 education for the past 60 or more years. The people who designed the system are probably noted in history of education college textbooks. However, most of us have no idea how this design occurred or who did the designing. Today, the designers have more control over education than any living person.
Teachers can be heard complaining that education is changing so often they can hardly keep up. Besides, the new change this year will be gone in 2-3 years anyway. Discouragement is rampant. Where is all the change occurring? It is with the delivery system in classrooms and not with the design.
No matter how skilled the contractor, a poorly designed building will fall.
No matter how skilled the factory workers, poorly designed auto parts will soon be on the recall list.
No matter how skilled the dancers, a chorographer without rhythm is a disaster.
No matter how skilled the teaching staff, a poorly designed education system will produce the same results year after year after year.
The design wins almost every time.
The system design can be changed. Many inherited practices will need to be replaced. Every week a new blog on LearningThatLasts.com will guide you on this exciting journey. I estimate that almost all our education problems are caused by the design for education we inherited. I know this is hard to believe, so think about yourself as a youth. Did you keep your kindergarten level of love of learning all the way to grade 12? If yes, you are one of about 6-9%. If no, what caused this loss of learning enthusiasm? I can almost guarantee it was a caused by your reaction to the system design. You may have thought it was teachers, but they were operating inside the structure of the design just like today’s teachers.