Thanks to Hadley Ferguson (@hadleyjf) for sending me this article from the Huffington Post by J.B. Pritzker titled, “Only Kids Can Fix This Economy”. Pritzker is specifically talking about investing in the President’s proposed Early Learning Challenge Fund and the important waterfall effect that it can have, but let’s take this title and go in another direction.
We don’t give kids enough of society’s problems to try and fix.
Currently, I am showing the movie “Crash” to my AP US kids, and we are talking about ways that we can improve the relations and interactions between people who have obvious bias. This topic is almost always swept under the carpet in school and society in general. It’s almost as though people believe we should ignore these topics and they will go away. How successful has that been so far?
Some of us have a predisposition that kids are “too young to understand” or “can’t develop their thoughts with enough clarity” to properly address the situation.
Why are we not asking kids like Filip Piasevoli to develop solutions to complex problems like the economy or the oil spill?
I love the argument “they don’t understand.” As far as I am concerned, neither did BP. If they did, then it STILL wouldn’t be a problem. Hell, by this point, the BP oil spill could have been an entire marking period worth of work having kids research and develop solutions that have had the same (or better) success rate as BP’s.
I just get amazed when we shun student participation simply because they are not “experts” in the field, but at the same time, we will praise the availability of knowledge through technology in the 21st century. Seems like a double-standard to me, and just another case where we say one thing but fail to implement it on a practical level.
Progressive educators need to start introducing students to problems of the world. We need to guide them towards situations that they may be interested in developing solutions to like saving the Trenton Barracks (be a pal and sign our petition), stimulating the economy, or posing potential solutions to areas that interest them.
Do I expect them to solve all of these problems or even come up with feasible solutions for every one? Of course not, but is there anyone on the planet that we expect that from?
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That’s why Future Problem Solving (www.fpspi.org) is such a brilliant programme. Our kids could use our process and come up with a heap of viable solutions. Their creativity and problem solving skills blow me away! Kids can look at problems in a completely different and unbiased way to adults.
Robyn,
Thanks for the link! I will definitely check it out and, hopefully, be able to at least try the program out with my kids. Much appreciated.
AE
we’re totally with you… seems like such a simple fix… for the world.. for motivation.. for authentic learning.
kids and i crafter this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlDZmRhEZrI
Aaron,
I have two thoughts. First of all, Crash is a great film, not only to talk about other people’s biases but to examine the constant shift of perspective that the movie offers. That any of us is subject to holding a flawed belief or attitude and to only presume that this is a tendency that people other than myself have is most certainly flawed.
Second, I agree that students in middle and high school levels need to be involved in problem-based learning. This is intrinsically part of place-based learning design. Furthermore, it is the design of the Maine Farm Enterprise Schools, http://www.mainefarmschool.org