A hundred years ago, colleges were determining the elementary and secondary curriculum. The humanities had to take a back seat to science and math, and effective teaching methods were determined in a scientific fashion. Later, the work of Dewey and Piaget brought child development to the forefront and curricular experts responded in fashion. During the time of Scholarly Structuralism (1957-1967) academic scholars had a voice in developing content specific curriculum. They determined requirements that should be attained by high school graduates and these “suggestions” were adopted in most schools. Education in the late 60s and early 70’s was what you might guess- student centered to the extreme, buildings with no principals being run by teachers whose main goal was to let children discover their interests and direct their learning. The reaction to this time, Privatistic Conservatism (1975- 1989) was the antithesis of the prior philosophies. School reform, rigorous curriculum and the Critical Thinking movement was designed to prepare students for a technological environment. What naturally followed was an even greater focus on the use of computers and a push for states to communicate and assess educational standards. The No Child Left Behind Act was signed in to law in 2001. NCLB was highly controversial as government funding was directly tied to student achievement. Voucher programs which give families more choice in their child’s education popped up around the country threatening the viability of public schools. This brief (and admittedly incomplete) history of curricular trends in education, illustrate how responsive our profession must be to the societal and political landscape of the times.
Today, technology, specifically the internet, is forcing educational leaders to continually revise curricular expectations. Our students will live in an uber-connected global society with information overload as a daily norm. What constitutes as “digital literacy” changes from day to day and the soft skills a high school graduate will need are becoming much more important than some of the hard ones. We ask ourselves, “What should our students master before they leave us?” We used to take the answer to that question and proceed to design an educational experience that would culminate in a student stepping off the stage armed with the necessary tools to succeed. It is no longer that simple. The society waiting to embrace that graduate has much to say about whom they want her to be and the wish-list seems to change too fast for educators to keep up.
Successful educational leaders are connected to the school community, the local community and the global community. They insist on keeping up with advances in technology and are constantly asking if their curriculum is relevant. They hire teachers not for their mastery of a content subject, but rather for their ability to adapt, to learn and to respond to the needs of a diverse student body. They accept the fact that there will not be a return to “traditional” education, and willingly move in to un-chartered waters. Educational leaders brave the unknown in order to secure the unknown: their students’ future.