The Observation Deck

There are very few “effective” high schools in the U.S., at least insofar as facing 21st century challenges is concerned. None are traditional schools. The two biggest problems with traditional schools are:

1) Traditional schools assume that “success” is when you are smarter than everyone else. The fact is, success is when everyone else is just as smart as you. Hopefully even smarter. We teach kids to compete (via grades), not to collaborate. Unfortunately....

2) Traditional schools punish failure, when in fact you learn more from failure than you ever do from success. Getting a question wrong costs you? Failure should be rewarded.

I won't bother mentioning the premise that one singular educational model is most appropriate for virtually all students. Or that memorizing stuff is more important than making/fixing stuff. Or that the “subject matter” educational model we use today was designed at the height of the Industrial Revolution.

The educational system we use today isn't working. How? I can't tell you. All I can tell you is that our economy is in the worst shape in 80 years and maybe forever, the environment is in the worst shape ever, we are barreling through non-renewable resources at an alarming rate and jeopardizing those we purport to educate, we're at war in two countries, corruption at all levels is rampant, we pass 2000-page laws that even their authors don't understand, our justice system is broken, Social Security/Medicare/public employee pensions are toast, and we are becoming increasingly morally and intellectually bankrupt. Even as we allegedly get “smarter.”

With all the problems we face today, and with virtually nobody paying serious attention, young or old, how can it be said that our educational system does, or really ever did (at least recently), put out an effective product? If our kids were truly educated there would be a perpetual Million Teen March demanding we fix things. But our kids are way too apathetic. My generation ended Vietnam. My kids, not so much....

I bet Lakewood Colorado doesn't have their very own Rock Orchestra?

Here's a snipet of The Lakewood Project performing "Proud Mary" on July 4th before the fireworks. They also played The Who, Styx, Journey and many others. My iPhone video does not do them justice...one heck of a show!

One of the many reasons Lakewood is number 1 in my book

Tim,

I agree with pretty much everything you said. However, I don't think apathy is the issue with kids today. It has way more to do with the first two points you made in your post. Here's what a few of us at LHS are doing in line with those two points.

https://moodle.lakewoodcityschools.org/moodle/course/view.php?id=94

This is a link to the LHS 2.0 Information Page. You can log-in as a guest and poke around. I would particularly look at the introduction, as it specifically mentions the significant role of failure in what we are doing.

Clarification

It has come to my attention that my use of the word "few" could be interpreted as a suggestion that only a few of us were doing work that is responsive to the needs of our students. This is not the case. I meant "few" in the same way that a "few " teachers are special Ed. teachers or a "few" people in our building are also parents. I in no way meant that there are only a small number of teachers that are working to address the issues that Tim mentioned. The continued excellence of our staff is evident in numerous obvious ways. Lastly, any look at my numerousprevious posts over the years will show me to be am outspoken advocate of the excellent work our staff is doing as a whole.. To access these posts, please click on my profile and hit "see previous posts". I am a proud member of a fantastic and dedicated staff, and deeply regret any interpretation of my previous post that would lead anyone to think otherwise.



Lastly