Enhancing the Three R’s
Tumult, turmoil, trepidation, the Three T's of pandemic-era education. The nation asks: what is being taught in our classrooms? The normative short answer? As much relevant information as possible, but not always what to then do with it.
Each state mandates subject-related curriculum paced to acknowledge the transient nature of students and families. Each school is packed with unique instructors, who mostly close their doors and teach their charges what the approved standards command, in ways they each see fit. Does each classroom provide the same educational experience for each pupil. No. When humans are involved, it doesn't work that way.
What should consistently happen is that teachers push students to learn core information about their subjects, and then encourage as much thought-provoking analysis of the knowledge gained. Will there be debate? Should controversial issues be covered? Absolutely. Can every aspect of a topic be thoroughly researched and discussed? No, not enough time, but for some issues, we should slow down and dig deeper.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) Program began developing in the post World War II era as diplomats wondered how to properly educate their children who were frequently whisked away to other countries, each with unique curriculum. By 1968, the IB Program was born, and one of its bedrock courses, perhaps the ribbon wrapped around the IB diploma, is Theory of Knowledge (TOK). The main product of the course is an essay that reflects the student’s understanding of the core areas of knowledge, and the process by which we validate and utilize information.
Sample prompts have included questions pertaining to the impact of international borders, the consequences of technology, and the differences between temporal, and immutable beliefs. Given that model, could a question seep into any classroom’s culture addressing the implications of teaching the tenets of Critical Race Theory, or climate change, or how to combat a life-threatening pandemic? Why not?
Our tendency is to avoid that which is controversial, and when negotiating the tangled web of single digit/tween/teen emotions and often haphazardly-gained knowledge, it seems far safer to steer discussion toward the center lane. That, as we’ve seen, provides its own inherent dangers.
What we need, and Candor participants, the Battling Bobs (Litan and Love), have been calling for, is a structured approach to handling difficult issues, one that can serve as more than a template, one that is our “muscle memory” approach to intellectual conflict management.
The recipe should include healthy doses of TOK strategies seeking agreement on what is true knowledge, and then practicing how to process the facts to reach meaningful conclusions. It should include the guardrails of civil discourse, and then take form in democracy-laden political movements that shape our laws and tendencies.
We must train our children, both at home and in the classroom, how to interact in positive ways, and it begins with better ways to resolve conflicts. Shying away from the issues that roil us is not the answer. Will we arrive at the correct answer? Complex social issues aren’t resolved with answers displayed in the back of a textbook, we must aggressively pursue them, and process is critical to that outcome.