What Do We Want?

Jack Lessenberry, a political commentator, wrote that when "Ed Koch was campaigning for mayor of New York, an elderly woman came up to him. She was clearly distressed about the way the city was changing. “Make it like it was,” she told him.

He looked at her, and in a moment of candor rare for any politician, answered, “It was never like it was.”

An article in Wired Magazine, called "The Good Enough Revolution," suggests that increasingly people are satisfied with things that are "good enough." No longer are people holding out for the highest quality products. Good enough is truly enough.

All of this started me thinking about what people want from schools. Ocassionally I hear that we need to do things like we used to; that the past was better, more rigorous, and more demanding than the present.

I also hear that what we are doing is adequately preparing students for the future. We are good enough people say. We don't need to make sure that all students get successfully through Algebra II. A basic understanding of math is good enough.

Schools are torn between those who think we are demanding enough and those who think our demands are just fine. What should we be?

All I know is that the future is going to look different than the past. What it will look like I do not know. But preparing students with the skills and knowledge to live in a changing world will be important. Our students have to be well prepared. Our students have to have the knowledge and skills to compete with anybody in the world. Yet we also need to include in the conversation that not everyone is going to get, or need, a four year college degree.

I hope that we want skills that will challenge students, help students expand their horizons, and identify where they want to go and how they can get there. We need to be both demanding and practical.