If you asked 10 adults what the purpose of education is you would likely get nine or 10 different answers. When public education was first established in our country, education was designed to prepare people to participate in our democracy. Soon after the industrial revolution, education was used to promote literacy among the masses and, some would argue, to separate students into groups based on their achievement to determine who would pursue further education and who would enter the workforce. In post-World War II America, education was viewed as a way to improve the future for the next generation.
As we embarked upon the 21st century, the purpose of public education, and whether it can be done better by entities other than public school districts, has been a widely debated topic. At the same time, there seems to be even less consensus in our society as to what the purpose of public education is, or should be. You have your back-to-basics fans, techies, liberal arts advocates, career prep advocates, school voucher fans — and this list only represents about one third of the philosophies people have about the purpose of education.
In my daily work as the District Administrator, I get to promote my vision for education, as the leader of the largest school district in Green County and the third largest school district in a 45-minute radius from Monroe. I am not suggesting that my vision for public education is the right one; I just have more influence than the average person does on clarifying the vision for our school district due to the role I play here. While my philosophy on education is not necessarily shared by everyone in our organization, I do have the positional authority to make final decisions that can steer us in a given direction, so it is natural that my philosophies would be embedded in many programming decisions we make.
I believe the purpose of public education, and the School District of Monroe, is to develop lifelong learners, and informed citizens, that demonstrate workplace readiness in a technology-rich society. Here are some details on how I see our district supporting these three areas:
Lifelong Learning — The days have long since passed that education ends when you receive a diploma or degree. Technology and changes in the global marketplace require people to continue learning new skills and processing new information throughout their lives. In order to do so, we need to make sure our students have the literacy and math skills they need to continue learning through the years. We need to promote a growth mindset among our students, so that they will never stop learning and recognize that the more they learn, the better the outcomes will be in their daily lives.
Informed Citizens — We once could count on print, radio and television media to verify their sources before reporting on news and world events. Social media and the internet have radically increased people’s access to information, but it has also made us more susceptible to rhetoric disguised as news or information. Informed citizens need to be able to evaluate sources, use text evidence to verify factual accuracy, and they need to be aware of bias that is embedded in information that they consume.
Workplace Readiness — While showing up for work on time and doing what you are told to do is part of workplace readiness, the nature of how work is completed in “the real world” is different than it once was, and we need to build a capacity among our learners to adjust to these changes. I hate to break it to the “back to basics” folks, but technology is here to stay and will continue to develop at a pace so rapid we cannot predict its future role. What we do know is that collaborative skills, teamwork, ethics and a commitment to quality will continue to be critical in the jobs of the present and the future. More and more adults will be living in a “gig economy” where they are paid for work in an outcome-based manner and people will be less and less tied to the physical location of their employers. We need to prepare our students to understand these changes and the impact they will have on their future and the future of the next generation.
I truly love writing about education and I have ideas how these three competencies can be strengthened. The reality is, at some point, we have to be prepared to put some traditions of what education looks like in Monroe aside and focus on what we need to provide for our children. We have to be ready to change not only what we teach but, in some cases, how we teach it. We need to take the focus off the teacher and put it onto the learner. We need to be OK with change, because our schools cannot stay the same while our society constantly evolves. All I ask from our community is to keep an open mind, and consider sharing in my vision of a better Monroe for our children and the next generation.
Keep on learning and GO CHEESEMAKERS!!
— Rick Waski is the district administrator for the School District of Monroe.
