As a nation, we obsess about education. Look at A Nation at Risk’s 1984 critique that public education would not bring about a competitive economy. Or maybe Eisenhower’s National Defense Education Act, aimed at increasing science education for national safety in 1958. Or go back to 1930 to Eleanor Roosevelt's speech in Hyde Park when she called for an improvement in education to build better citizens.
As more and more people chime in—whether they be teachers, administrators, business people, entrepreneurs, politicians, foundations, social workers or technologists—our conversations over what we teach, when, why and how we teach it, have become more polarized. Each group brings its own views on how teaching and learning has and should evolve.
Each group of people looking to education to solve problems or serve as a mechanism of change is looking at the world through their own lens. Maybe it’s political, economical, justice-oriented or relationship-focused. Each person uses their lens to define what teaching and learning should look like.
This project invites you to try on different lenses when looking at K-12 education in the US. We will give you perspectives from different stakeholders on the trends and forces shaping how money is invested, how tools are created and how schools are designing teaching and learning experiences.
We all have a huge stake in education, as parents, as community members and as learners ourselves. However, the only way we can collectively move education forward is if we start trading lenses and begin building a better understanding of how other communities see teaching and learning.
Please share and take the opportunity to “regrind your conceptual lenses” to gain a different perspective on the evolution of teaching and learning.
