Seeds For Change: Education Reform in Context

By Jennifer Little

Seeds for Change: Education Reform in Context is not a step-by-step manual for change of K-12 and Higher Education. It is the beginning point for discussions that will affect everyone in the global economy. A service-industry approach to education reform could not only identify and help fix the broken parts of our society but also provide economic growth without sacrificing the environment or natural resources. Education is in the unique position of being the nexus of all aspects of our society, capable of conducting unbiased and in-depth research that can re-define our current and future needs for growth and change.

Seeds for Change enlightens readers about:
Inner workings of all levels of the education industry.
Relationships of power influencing decisions and policies at all levels.
Faulty assumptions made by politicians, policy makers, researchers in higher education and related industries supporting and/or contributing to the education industry.
Opportunities to explore for possible social and economic growth resulting from education reform efforts.
Interconnections that contribute to, are perpetuated by, or are dictated by education.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Little
• Release date: Nov 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301341139

Jennifer Little

Jennifer Little, Ph.D., has a passion for helping students who are difficult-to-serve. She has an extensive and varied experience within education. She has been an enrolled student (full- or part-time) at 15 colleges or universities. As a K-12 education teacher, she has worked with preschool through twelfth grade students for over 35 years in 9 different states. As an adjunct faculty member, she has taught undergraduate and graduate students at 6 different colleges and universities. In her postdoctoral work she was the study director for a substance abuse prevention project with inner city, at-risk students. For five years she volunteered for 20 hours a week in a moderate security juvenile incarceration facility and taught half-time for 2 years in a juvenile detention facility. Because appropriate materials were not available for her K-12 students, she developed materials to support instruction. Using what she had learned about child development, learning theories, curriculum design and instructional methods, she devised ways to work with students performing far below grade level. Their rapid and sustained growth in academic skills reversed many students’ behavioral problems. The resulting student success showed her not only that what happens in school is what causes student failure, but also the reasons for those failures lie outside the control of teachers and inside the power structures that drive education.

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Jennifer Little, Ph.D.

Seeds for Change: Education Reform in Context

© 2009 Jennifer Little, Ph.D.

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http://www.parentsteachkids.com

Published by Jennifer Little, Ph.D., at Smashwords

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Cover photo original by Neal Fowler. Design by Shannon Boehmer Kramer.

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Table of Contents

Preface

Forward

Introduction – Where we are now

Chapter 1 - Obstacles: Assumptions and beliefs

Chapter 2 - Obstacles: People as a resource

Chapter 3 - Obstacles: Arguments for and against change

Chapter 4 - Obstacles: Willingness to begin changes

Chapter 5 - Obstacles: The way things work

Chapter 6 - Change Process: Getting started

Chapter 7 - Change Process: Opening hearts and minds

Chapter 8 - Change Process: Getting started on the path of change

Chapter 9 - Change Process: Gathering the power for change

Chapter 10 - Assumption one

Chapter 11 - Assumption two

Chapter 12 - Assumption three

Chapter 13 - Assumption four

Chapter 14 - Assumption five

Chapter 15 - Assumption six

Chapter 16 - Assumption seven

Chapter 17 - Assumption eight

Chapter 18 - Assumption nine

Chapter 19 - Assumption ten

Chapter 20 - Managing Change: Completing changes already in progress

Chapter 21 - Managing Change: Beginning to change positions on change itself

Chapter 22 - Managing Change: Conclusions about change

Chapter 23 - Managing Change: Eventual changes

Chapter 24 - Managing Change: Completion

Chapter 25 - Guiding Principles for Change: Principle One

Chapter 26 - Guiding Principles for Change: Principle two

Chapter 27 - Guiding Principles for Change: Principle three

Chapter 28 - Guiding Principles for Change: Principle four

Chapter 29 - Conclusion

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Preface

In the course of studying and working within education for over three decades, I have learned a great deal, not only about teaching students in K-12 but also about the system of education and how it impacts lives on both sides of the teachers’ desks. Students gain information and basic skills, hopefully the ones they will need to support themselves and their families when they are adults. Teachers learn effective and efficient means of teaching those skills as well as skills that are needed for the mastery of skills at their grade levels. Unfortunately, for the purpose of this writing, teachers tend to remain at the same grade levels and/or in the same content areas, so they do not usually see or learn across the spectrum of possibilities, either in ability groups or ages.

I have taught across a spectrum of ages (preschool through graduate school) in various locations (urban, suburban, rural) across the country (10 different states) and in various capabilities (substitute teacher, temporary and permanent contract teacher, field research). Each of these experiences has added to a wider and deeper view of education than most professionals ever develop. The resulting view encompasses theoretical and practical education of all abilities of students, from severely and profoundly developmentally disabled to talented and gifted in academics and/or arts. Without each and every experience provided by the individual students served, this view would not be possible. They have taught me what was needed to learn about education, what education needs to become, and what is needed to make education become the venue for successful social reforms. Without them, this project would not be possible. Therefore, with intense gratitude, this work is dedicated to each of those students. You know who you are.

This work is offered at a low cost in the hopes that a popular movement for education reform can develop to actually and positively impact the institutions within education and our society as a whole. Information is power and the more citizens know, the more they can participate in their own governmental and educational systems. The greater the participation, the more hope there is for true education reform.

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Forward

Just because you attended school doesn’t mean you understand the process, industry, conditions or issues of the American educational system. Just because you studied history, doesn’t mean you understand the role education played in developing our present or will play in creating our future.

A very short history lesson

The unskilled and illiterate Agrarian Age workforce fed and clothed everyone. Nobles had rudimentary skills of reading and mathematics to monitor the business of the land. Gradually, basic literacy skills enabled people to read the Bible and self-govern. In the early Industrial Age, the workforce supported machine labor. The assembly line, created in the early 1900s, organized manual labor and required increasingly skilled labor that monitored and/or operated complex machinery and tools. Job scarcity for adults led to child labor laws and our current lengthy structure of modern education. Vested in the model of manufacturing, America’s educational system molded children into adult products to meet the needs of assembly line supervisors and employers – literate enough to follow or read simple directions but not literate enough to challenge the structure of authority.

Economic conditions changed worldwide as a result of wars and military production. Society has changed as: voting rights affected and shifted power structures, social services developed from needs made apparent by the Great Depression, and the G.I. Bill made college educations available to the masses.

Science and engineering developed technology for automation that has replaced many unskilled and semi-skilled manufacturing and retail jobs. Computer-based occupations have ushered in the Information Age, but the skills needed by the workforce are still inadequately defined. A technologically-driven economy ignores the needs of people who were once the backbone of the Industrial Age economy.

Education remains in the model of serving industrial-era employers. Although manufacturing has moved overseas, rapidly-spreading technological advances have not significantly changed the face of education. The question is, Why?

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Where We Are Now

When we talk about change or making changes in our social lives, our society, our culture, or the system of laws and policies that govern us in this country, there are many assumptions we make. We talk about changing the ethnic background or heritage of a group of people to accept whatever the laws, made by others, create. An example of this is when legislation was passed for equality of all in housing; not all individuals in an apartment complex, neighborhood or community easily accepted the changes that began. Many acts of violence erupted in demonstration, in aggression, in support of that change. We continue to have legal challenges to the body of laws that evolved as a result. We continue to have violence and aggression in small pockets of our country, but the greater number of people have accepted and changed behaviors toward minorities.

Our country is a conglomerate of minorities

We have every race, culture, ethnic background, religion, and almost all of the world’s languages in our general population. We have special interest groups around political and social issues confronting mainstream beliefs and policies. We have minorities not represented because they are here illegally or never learned to speak the dominant language. We have issues surrounding taxation and benefits received from taxes. We have challenges to almost any position, belief, process or established doctrine possible.

We are a country of individuals represented by many possible aspects of our culture or self. No one group of people can actually believe that they represent everyone in their country or portion of the country; there are simply too many variations among the people here. Yet politicians claim to represent us, provide opportunities, design systems and legislation to ensure our prosperity. They claim to know what is best for us, but do they?

Mistakes of leaders

Those in elected offices and, consequently, those working for them, make many assumptions. The general public that is literate, self-sufficient and responsible for their own lives and livelihoods, also makes many assumptions. There are many who are not literate, self-sufficient, or responsible in any way, shape or form. They are draining our society of our resources and many in political offices see the need to change that situation but are helpless as to how to accomplish the social change.

Responsibility for change

No one in politics wants to be responsible for social upheaval, negative publicity or loss of their job, yet all espouse the need to change. They create their versions of change by passing laws or developing policies, usually implemented with little contact with or concern for those most affected. The politicians intend well, but the resulting problems in our society have become increasingly complex and expensive. There seems to be no solution that will make the necessary changes in the needed length of time to financially and politically survive in this time of economic and social crisis.

Roadmap for change

There are ways to solve our social problems, but they will take great amounts of co-operation among independently operating systems and individuals used to creating their own power base without concern for others. It will take everyone focusing on the problems, developing methods and systems to acquire and disseminate information and results, as well as a continual process of feedback to create the next level of developments requiring attention. In other words, it will take re-designing our society to re-design our