Seth Godin explains why it is so hard to make progress with public education

A friend sent me a link to What is school for? by Seth Godin. Seth lists twenty seven possible goals of education. Some of them are contradictory.

When you stop and think about it, it becomes clear that part of the reason for lack of progress in improving public education is that so many people are pushing in different directions. Some want academics to get better. Others want expanded sport or art programs. Some people want children to be exposed to diversity or ways to help the environment. Others want informed citizens.

At a high level pretty much everyone agrees that education is a good thing. But once you start drilling down into the details of what it means, there quickly becomes huge differences in expectations. This is one of the reasons that homeschoolers succeed. We don't have to be distracted by someone else's view. We can make our selection from Seth's 27 goals, or come up with our own, and plug ahead. Because we are implementing our goals we have more energy and dedication. We are more engaged.


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