US/ND-2: Partnerships

Partnerships

Christine Rademan (cradema@libby.litchpkeld.k12.az.us)
Wed, 04 Sep 1996 19:21:03 -0700 

It is a little daunting to try to read & comprehend the many themes that
have been touched during the past week!  

My teaching career began on the Apache reservation in AZ.  I've been in
an innercity school, rural schools, took time off to have three kids. 
Then I taught kindergarten 7 years, learned ESL skills,and became
Migrant Program Coordinator for a small K-8 elementary district
last year.

When I took AV methods, we still used spirit duplicators, filmstrips,
and movie projectors.  Today we use photocopiers, fax machines, and
computers just as easily.  Our small district has spent 3 years building
the skills of its teachers.  A fall inservice each year taught us to use
email and school-wide servers. The teachers quickly learned to help one
another, and we love what the system can do for us! 

When we think about universal service, are we thinking big enough?  Our
competitors in Europe have taken "partnership" far beyond any suggestion
made here so far.  In RETHINKING AMERICA, Hedrick Smith describes the
system of "dual education" in Germany, designed for the 7 in 10 students
who do not go to university.  (American rates of university attendance
are similar.)

Imagine:  500,000 companies, professions, and public employers working
closely with the public education system to provide 750,000
apprenticeships a year to students in 11th and 12th grade.  Each
apprentice earns about $600/mo.  West Germany's industries and crafts
spend aabout $15 billion per year to support these programs.  To match
the German investment in the next generation, American companies,
crafts, and professions would have to invest $60 billion per year, based
on our population.

Mercedes-Benz has provided its apprentices with a $1,000,000 state of
the art robot in order to give them experience with real repair
problems.  Do American enterprises need skilled workers, able to solve
real problems?  How could the Telecommunications Act of 1996 open our
business partners' eyes to the value of a well-trained work force? 
Could our educational system benefit from such an infusion of funds?  Is
it possible for the telcos to pioneer a joint public/private training
program that would encourage other industries to do the same?  Could
educators surrender some of their freedom and control?

A few other comments:  The type of student who is confident on the
internet may be threatening to parents, and some teachers.  James A.
Mecklenburger wrote:  "The problem is that today's practices reflect
many people's unchallenged beliefs, derived from 19th-century life,
about what is appropriate 'school practice.'  The fact is
Americans...favor obsolete schooling, vote for it, pay for it, and
expect it...Compared with most other modern institutions, many schools
appear to be rigid, lock-step, repetitious and boring.  They are
information poor.  They treat children as widgets passing by clock and
calendar along assembly lines.  They treat teachers as talking, talking,
talking presenters of cut-and-dried information.  The clients of
schools--students--find schools unfriendly and seek relief from them by
dropping out, tuning out, playing-the-game, or by engaging in all manner
of socially unfortunate behavior.  (INVENTING TOMORROW'S SCHOOLS, May,
1992)
  
I think that some of the more exciting uses of modern technology will be
created by our students (who are not limited in their possibilities by
their pasts).  

Planning and evaluation of lessons is a key to valid uses of the net. 
We don't have a phone in every classroom, but tv/vcr setups have proven
to be very useful, easy to maintain, and plentiful in school districts. 
Will the "net" be the phone jack or the tv/vcr?  The teacher's tool or
the student's window on time and space?