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It turns out that the first step in changing the world is to change education. Education shapes how people think, how they view society and themselves. Education also shapes what we expect of the future -- and without a strong image of a better future, change can never take place. Our view of the future, in turn, rests upon how we see the past. Knowing history's mistakes and success stories are therefore very important in seeing how to create a better world.
Now that we have the Internet, why not combine a new education with new ecology-based science and deliver it all over the Web? Why not have the goal of creating mass numbers of change agents for a world needing change -- to create a better future, a sustainable future?
Over the Internet, this Global Curriculum site teaches people and students around the world the most-needed knowledge and perennial wisdom, as well as critical thinking skills, essay writing and new paradigm science. The ultimate goal, beyond teaching the young, is to provide life-long learning for all and act as a global university, a place where great minds can gather, discuss and teach the planet.
The history of thought and the history of science and technolgy, are the core of the new curriculum. Everything taught is connected to its meaning and usefulness in the present, in the 21st Century. Facts are connected to real people who made a change in society: the change agents, the makers of history. Meanwhile, the new paradigm in science has already produced Ecology and "Regenerative Science", which can restore the environment, and transform economics and technology at the same time. Everyone should have a grounding in the new thinking.
In learning this great body of knowledge and wisdom, everyone can discover their own individual potential, for they will feel they are standing on the shoulders of the great thinkers and change agents of the past. Everyone will then understand the past in a new light, seeing our own time as a critical time in human history -- one facing the triple-threat of global warming, dying oceans and the potential for nuclear war.
Everyone will finally see their own role in making this transformation happen, they will realize the part they themselves can play. At that point they are not simply learning history to pass a test. They are mastering history so they can become change agents and history-makers themselves.
The immediate goal is for the learner to acheive enough knowledge and self-mastery so that self-education becomes a burning desire, to fill the wish all have to develop their creative potential to the fullest. The modern pyschologist Adler found that the basic universal core need is: "Where do I fit in?" or "What's it got to do with me?" The Global Curriculum answers those questions as well, offering a positive vision of the future, a livable future that needs all of us to join in and change the world.
Before we can change education, however, we must first understand what went wrong with today's schooling. How exactly has education failed us, and what are the unfortunate results of that failure?
The Current US Curriculum Has a 30% Dropout Rate,
50% For Minorities -- Boredom is the Key Factor
Shelbyville is an ordinary town of 18,000 located in Indiana. Out of 315 9th graders, however, only 215 graduated--with the rest dropping out. Unfortunately, Shelbyville, Indiana, is not unusual. In fact, its 30% dropout rate is equal to the nation's average. Time Magazine's recent cover story, "Dropout Nation", revealed that not only do US high schools suffer a 30% dropout rate, but for African-Americans and Hispanics the average is a staggering 50%.
The article notes that a Gates Foundation survey found two very surprising facts about dropouts. 88% of those surveyed said they had passing or even good grades, so that difficulties with their classes was not a key factor. Yet the surprise over that finding was surpassed by the shock that came when dropouts were asked why they stopped their education.
The number one reason dropouts cited for leaving high school? Boredom.
This disastrous fact naturally raises the question: Does High School have to be boring? Where does the current curriculum get off-track and what can be done to make school interesting and--dare we say it--fun?
Beyond making school more interesting--is it not time to step back and take a look at the Big Picture. Is High School, especially in the US, meeting the true needs of the society and the students who attend it? What kind of change is required, for example, so that High Schools produce graduates able to create a workable and sustainable future? How can they learn how to become agents of change in this troubled world? We will see that the answers to these questions are critical--for the current curriculum needs more than updating or minor changes in its approach.
A total 21st Century transformation is in order.
Why is the current curriculum so boring to so many? There are many factors, such as lessons that teach toward the test, boring presentations by teachers, and horrendous cuts in education funding. The main reason, however, is that the courses themselves are outdated and irrelevant to society's current needs. It is difficult to see how many of these courses are relevant to today--because in fact they are not relevant. One must understand why they are learning something, and that need must be real. This knowledge of why we learn is motivating and inspires self-learning. It is not simply the old slogan of "To Get A Good Job, Get A Good Education"--where learning stops when we become employed.
The present curriculum is a product of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and was heavily influenced by the needs of the Cold War. Just as the military of the West is still geared to fighting Cold War enemies that no longer exist, the educational system is not meeting the pressing challenges of the 21st Century.
On October 4, 1957, the old Soviet Union, the enemy of the United States bloc in the Cold War, launched the first satellite to orbit the Earth: Sputnik. In the ensuing Missile Gap panic, the United States changed what was taught in high schools, including algebra and more chemistry--to produce graduates who could be rocket scientists and engineers. Education was reshaped to support not only the military and NASA, but also to deliver chemists and nuclear engineers to industry. Much the same took place in the Communist bloc.
Today, however, the world is no longer in the Cold War, we are in a different kind of dilemma, with crises on multiple fronts. Meanwhile, the chemical industry and energy production have been unprecedented environmental disasters. Clearly needs have changed since the Fifties. The challenge today, obviously, is to reverse global warming, bring peace and prosperity to a war-torn planet and restore the damaged Earth. We need a new education to meet this challenge, one that creates the thinkers, doers and scientists who can succeed in this great task.
The current round of wars also show that we need more peacemakers, not more militarism. The world must end abject global poverty and the worst of political repression if it wants to end the current round of terrorism and armed conflict. Merely using force only makes any such problem worse. we need a new global education to teach those new peacemakers, and today it can be delivered on the Internet to the entire planet.
This new education should be based on a world-centered curriculum, rather than the old structure which teaches a Euro-Centered or nationalist view. Nationalist or Euro-centric curriculums tend to reinforce the primacy of one country or of European civilization, creating a negative or simply uninformed view of other cultures.
This creates a ready atmosphere for war in every nation where it occurs. In the US, for example, American History is typically taught four times in elementary, middle and high school, and then college requires a course only in Western Civilization. One can get their degree without ever having learned world history. This is the opposite of what is required to succeed in the new globalized world of the 21st Century. Some states recently have added Eastern history to high school, but it is presented in a disjointed and non-engaging manner.
There could instead be a holistic presentation that supports the concept that all people of this Earth are one human family, that we must all solve the common crises of today--and go into the future together. Along the way, everyone will learn to appreciate other cultures and the many different ways of thinking. They will be familiar with all the different parts of the globe. This will be far better preparation for their future careers in the 21st Century. And it will foster a new climate for peace.
Being able to create a workable future also means restoring the environment that has been destroyed in the last 100 years. Courses must teach the ecological and "Regenerative" Sciences, the new branches of study that give us the ability to restore and regenerate our planet and our culture. All learners must be inspired to create or further develop new forms of renewable energy or to organize energy conservation drives to solve the global warming crisis. It is these challenges that will occupy us in the 21st Century, not the expansion of the chemical industry, the Space Race or inventing new forms of nuclear power.
In the final analysis, planetary survival depends on recognizing what is wrong with human society and fixing it as soon as possible. That means changing the general way of thinking, in how the public perceives energy use and conservation, in what will be tolerated in terms of pollution, war and bad science.
School must create graduates who will be agents of change. High School should teach what role each person can play in saving our Spaceship Earth. How can we truly teach the fragility of our planet's environment? How should education bring out the potential of the future peacemakers of the world? How do we motivate one and all to conserve energy, participate in developing our communities--to go forth and change the world for the better?
We need to change our education so we can change ourselves as a species. Otherwise, our species just might be destined to join the ranks of the other failed branches of evolution.
We need a 21st Century curriculum, one based on new science and new thinking. For it was the old science and the old thinking that created the multiple crises the world suddenly finds itself in. Only a new education can change the direction we are presently headed in. From war and pollution to the educational system and beyond, we need to radically change if we are to forge a sustainable future, a future that works.
And we need to change now.
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