Within the public system there are now many alternative programs for students "at risk" of dropping out because they are so completely alienated by the impersonal routines of conventional schooling. And there are still significant pockets of progressive educators and related groups--such as those promoting whole language and cooperative learning--who remain determined to infuse public education with more democratic, humanistic purposes. But despite these oases of student-centered learning, the educational climate during the past decade has been affected by ever tighter state and federal control over learning, leading to still further testing, politically mandated "outcomes," and national standards. There is some hope in the relatively new concept of "charter schools," which allow parents and innovative educators to receive public funding with less bureaucratic intervention, although it remains to be seen how much freedom such schools will be allowed if national standards begin to be enforced.
As government school systems become increasingly yoked to the purposes of the corporate economy, it is likely that thousands more families and educators will turn to the more democratic and person-centered values represented by alternative schools and home education. For the past century and half, alternative schools have been isolated countercultural enclaves with little influence on mainstream educational thinking and policy. But in the "postindustrial" or "postmodern" era that appears to be emerging now, the industrial-age model of "social efficiency" is possibly starting to become obsolete.
Perhaps, as Ivan Illich envisioned in his 1970 book Deschooling Society and James Moffett describes in his recent book The Universal Schoolhouse, the idea of a public school system may have outlived its usefulness. According to these and other authors, in a democratic, information-rich society, learning should take place everywhere in the community, and young people should have access to mentors who nourish their diverse personal interests and styles of learning. We have a long way to go before this sort of system is in place, but if our society does in fact move in this direction, it may well be alternative educators who show the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment