Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Wendell Berry

The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.”

And done rightly--according to this approach, it is very difficult to numerate, measure, count and standardize teaching and learning, at least not in the way we endeavor to do with the Common Core and the attendant testing process.

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