November 2, 2004
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Topic: Internship
Well…today is election day, but I don’t think I need to tell you that.
Yesturday, I met with the two people who run the American Democracy Project, which was born less than two years ago. Their website definately describes pretty well what their aims are, but basically, they are helping to unite different schools, and programs within schools, so that they can work together on the issue of increasing “civic engagement,” which is a loaded term, but involves people recognizing that they are part of a bigger community, and there are things they can do to help that community (voting, service, and creating a general culture of community vs. isolated individuals).
So…using my own strategy of just meeting w/ the President of some organization to talk, we had lunch, we talked, then he asked what else he could do for me. I’ve come to expect that question, and I had two. The first was, “is there anyway I can write for the American Democracy Project site listed on the New York Times?” Sounds like I can, so I’m going to start working on a 750 word essay or so about my views on higher education and the larger picture of how that effects our “democracy,” or, our ability to function as a country in a fashion improving on the current fashion of ugly politics, cynicism, apathy, etc.
The second question was, “You guys need an intern?” They laughed a bit, saying they have no budget for the project and couldn’t pay me, but I pushed on, since I’m just looking for that foot in the door, and they went for it!!! So…hopefully starting in Dec., I’ll be interning for the American Democracy Project in D.C. for about 3 months. This also means I need to organize myself some kind of part-time work to make money, hopefully meaningful work, but I’ll working in another book store if I have to. My goal for the internship, (which is 98% in the bag, still need to get the 100% ok, but that just involves me doing some follow-up) is to be another voice in this national dialogue about how to make college students more tuned in to real world issues beyond simply their classes and grades, and the jobs that their college degrees will produce.
Also…I went into a bookstore, and found a book about the Big Picture Company and MET schools, a big written by the founder of those schools Dennis Litky, a person whose name has come up twice in the past week or so. This book, in plain journal-like writing, describes exactly what’s wrong with traditional schools, and exactly how his schools (which are small, and started from scratch), put into place the ideas that most people who have thought about what a school should look like, would want.
The book made me realize how my own learning has been stunted because of being in a traditional school. At a school like the MET school, I could have studied something like travel for four years, and in the process would have learned the math, history, science, english, and whatever other traditional skills that might be considered important…but I’d also have grown to be an expert at something. That’s how they run their schools. By focussing on one child at a time, they’re able to let that child develop their passions. A student whose friend past away was able to do a unit on death. A girl who had issues with being adopted, did a unit on adoption.
Our society is attached to testing and grades, although we know that’s not the best way. We’re a society that wants to see our children grow up to be independant and creative, but we kill those characteristics by standardizing our curriculums. In the year and a quarter since I graduated college (I’ve been stating 1 1/4 years a lot recently, I think it helps me gain perspective and helps me take myself seriously) I’ve come across many schools and thinkers critical of traditional education, which, naturally, I was never exposed to in all my traditional schooling, up to age 22.
That’s what makes this so interesting. We’re kept ignorant of the very education that we need to develop into life long learners. Hopefully, through my new connections, I’ll continue to learn more about this “other world,” that I’m seeing, and to help expose this world to those who are suffering in high school, about to go to college, about to enter the real world. The most popular program it seems for graduating seniors at Wash U. in St. Louis, is to apply for Teach for America. They advertise everywhere, and the prestige is well-known. But…in the long run, teaching in a MET school is going to have a considerably larger impact than doing Teach for America (Teach for America places college grads in low-income schools for two years, and helps teachers get a free masters in education). The ability to help students develop their infinite potential requires a school-system built around that. Helping low-income students graduate by passing their math and science classes that have virtually no real-world value, helping them pass their history classes that involve reading textbooks that mostly leave out the large chunks of negative US history, helping them spend all their hours inside a classroom, keeping them from learning about people and the world through interaction, ensures a future generation that mirrors this one.
SOCIAL PROGRESS REQUIRES EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS!!!!
-dan
Comments (4)
Congrats on the intermship , I hope they will aleast pay you some expensives
Way to go Dan!…getting the foot in the door is the beginning…
hey dan,
i’m not sure if you have mentioned this in your book or in previous blogs, but it seems to me that you have a very US centric very of education and issues in general, as well you should. however, how is education used and communicated in other countries and cultures. are there large differences or are ’traditional’ methods generally pervasive everywhere. also, a point to your support and may require more indepth research, again i’m not sure if you have tackled this, but yeshiva education is typically communal and seeks to make teach in order for students to learn, not pass a test. in fact, people are often students their whole lives and make a career out of learning. they do not however, place high value is diversity of educational nor do they have a world view, preferring to ghettoize themselves. however, their education model may be similar to yours and you may be able to build upon their existing, and seemingly successful activities. last, i have a devils advocate question for you: w/o tests, there is a sense of education communism where ranking is not important. but as is apparent w/ recent history, pure capitalism and pure communism, in a strictly economic sense, are bad for society, leading to a two-class system and widespread poverty, respectively. does your model include a way for students to quantitatively measure their progess in terms of themselves and relatively to other people. and when students eventually apply for jobs, and they will, what measures would employers take to determine the potential of one employee over another?
Let me work backwards through the questions. First, employers can choose employees based on their experiences, and through conversation. Grades and testing reveal nothing about the character and ability of a person. Second, students should measure success based on themselves, and evaluations from teachers. This is how it’s done in the real world. At a job, you don’t get letter grades, you get direct feedback, that’s how it should be done in schools.
I don’t really know how to respond to the idea of “education communism,” and i think it would be socialism, not communism (communism being political, socialism economic, i think…)
as for the yeshiva thing, the schools i advocate are communal in one sense, in that they’re cooperative rather than competitive (the competition is within each individual, rather than between individuals), but it’s not pushing an agenda like a yeshiva would be.
thanks for posting, hope that answers some questions,