The second central issue I have with the book, “That Used to
be Us” is the constant use of outdated ideas and concepts proclaimed by the
authors to be the way of tomorrow. A few years ago Amy and I took a vacation to
Florida and stopped at Disney World along the way. One of their most…outdated
but loved attraction is the ride that shows you different points in America’s
past and how technology has evolved and changed what the automated people were
doing on stage. It’s a fun ride and even has a fun song to sing as you move
through the show and the decades leading up to today. Of course when they built
the ride I am sure that the last stage was very modern and a little futuristic
with their ideas but now, many years later, the technology they show has
already happened and so it comes off as a simple entertaining ride and ‘cute’
so to speak.
I don’t blame Disney for not updating it. If we have learned
anything from the past 30 years it is that technological advances evolve at warp
speed, leaving a trail of barely used electronics and ideas in its wake. I use
this example to say the authors ideas of what will come tomorrow for our
country are a lot like this ride, they have either already happened and are in
the past or have not panned out exactly as was conceived. For example, on page
77 they quote a man proclaiming all services that can automated will be,
including that of a checkout clerk at a drugstore, phone operators, even your
assistant (I wish I just had an assistant!). The other day I went to Wal-Mart
and a very nice, friendly, smiling checkout lady rung up my groceries and
wished me a great day. I remember the first time I saw an automated checkout
line…it was in 2004! That’s technology that was introduced at least 8 years ago
and we all know in computer years that’s equal to about 50 years in advances
that should have outdated and unemployed checkout workers all together…yet I
still got a smile from a real, live human! In a book that proclaims to have a
strategy for America to move forward and better compete with other countries I
would expect innovation and technology examples to be cutting edge and a
glimpse into the next few years, not the last few.
Much of this book is devoted to education and I could go on
for a while about how I think the authors should spend some time teaching in an
average elementary and/or secondary classroom before they expunge new trends in
the field, but let’s just stick with some more outdated ideas they seemed to
believe as new and innovative. My favorite (very sarcastic) is on page 115 when
the authors delve into what is apparently their favorite state, Colorado, and
its ‘progressive’ educational systems. They give the example of the state
identifying the top teachers in each academic areas and having those teachers
upload lesson plans and videos of their teaching practices to the internet.
Then, a new teacher, or much less effective teacher, can go to the website and
use those lesson plans to become better stewards of education in their own
classroom. For any teacher that is reading this you know how long this practice
has been around. For those of you non-teachers…IT HAS BEEN AROUND FOR OVER 10
YEARS! There are countless websites employing this strategy of lesson sharing
and have for over a decade! The audacity of these men to suggest this as a new
wave of better teaching and learning is absolutely absurd. Unfortunately this
is not the only education strategies they mention that fall so far short of
being anything new or innovative. Some of my other favorites are
performance-based tenure (I remember my dad talking about this before he retired
from education), a way to get higher teacher salaries, and a renewed emphasis
on science and math. This last one especially frustrates me because, while it
is so true we need to become more competitive in these fields, they suggest
nothing to make this trend different than it was during the Cold War and the
arms race with Russia, and they COMPLETELY alienate the other fields such as English,
civics, and the arts. So sorry Amy, but I believe I may become extinct because I
have no skill in math or science.
I think the root of their problem with these outdated ideas
is their belief as laid out on page 102, that the American Dream is still what
we are chasing, and is no different than it has been for years. I disagree with
this, I believe the American Dream has changed and continues to move away from
the traditional image that comes to mind for most Americans. What is it changing
to? I am not sure, I have tried to think of a way to define the NEW American
Dream but that is a daunting task…but it feels different.
In my first year of teaching I was assigned a mentor teacher
to help me along the way. He was a lively, fun man who was going into his 31st
year of teaching. In the first few months, whenever he saw me working on lesson
plans or grading, he would come up to me, put a finger in my face, and say, “Don’t
reinvent the wheel!” It took a few months before I finally answered, “But what
if the wheel sucks?” But I get it now, and say the same thing to the men who
wrote this book; stop reinventing the wheel.
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