Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never seen a position description for a good job that didn’t have a long list of knowledge, skill, and character requirements. It makes me wonder why those focused on “21st century” careers seem to place skills and character—or problem solving, team work, and perseverance—far above knowledge.
David Brooks provides the latest example as he laments widespread enthusiasm for the new documentary “Most Likely to Succeed.” In lauding High Tech High, it dismisses the need for broad knowledge. Students’ time is devoted to long-term projects, so they end up with narrow bands of knowledge:
Teachers cover about half as much content as in a regular school. Long stretches of history and other subject curriculums are effectively skipped. Students do not develop conventional study habits.
The big question is whether such a shift from content to life skills is the proper response to a high-tech economy. I’d say it’s at best a partial response.
Ultimately, what matters is not only how well you can collaborate in groups, but the quality of the mind you bring to the group. In rightly playing up soft skills the movie underemphasizes intellectual virtues. For example, it ignores the distinction between information processing, which computers are good at, and knowledge, which they are not….
The cathedrals of knowledge and wisdom are based on the foundations of factual acquisition and cultural literacy. You can’t overleap that, which is what High Tech High is in danger of doing.
Brooks is absolutely right. The question is how to convince others.
What’s the value in collaboration without enough knowledge to generate and implement excellent ideas? (Image courtesy of Shutterstock.)
While the overwhelming evidence from cognitive science will win over our education system eventually, today’s students can’t wait. Fortunately, a new report from the Center for American Progress could catalyze change. The Hidden Value of Curriculum Reform: Do States and Districts Receive the Most Bang for Their Curriculum Buck? shows that better curriculum could be a low- to no-cost, high-impact reform. Focusing on return on investment (ROI), it should turn the heads of policymakers, philanthropists, and reformers:
Switching to a higher quality curriculum has a huge ROI relative to other educational policies—in large part because curricula cost so little…. The average cost-effectiveness ratio of switching curriculum was almost 40 times that of class-size reduction in a well-known randomized experiment….
State adoption decisions are often based on limited assessments of quality and weak proxies for alignment to state standards…. There is also a clear gap between the reality of which curricula are effective or aligned to state standards and the curricula that publishers advertise as such.
Much of the problem with adoption seems to be a lack of information. Curriculum has long been ignored by academics, funders, and decision-makers, so there’s shockingly little evidence of which curricula are most effective. Lots of approaches and materials result in at least some learning; rigorous comparative studies are needed to find out what works best for various groups of students.
The report calls for investments in creating better curricula, comparative evaluations, and improvements to the state and district selection processes (including a wise recommendation to pilot materials prior to adoption). The one suggestion I’d add is that districts and states need not do this work alone. Consortia could be more effective and efficient, especially for finding materials aligned with the Common Core standards. One large consortium might even have the resources to fund comparative studies.