Hello David. I think your analogy of educators seeing themselves as the crew of the Titanic is an apt one.

But why is the Titanic sinking? What does the ‘iceberg’ represent? Who is in charge of the educational Titanic and what are they doing to steer around the iceberg?

And who are teachers trying to impress with their innovations? Who is saying ‘jump’ and why are teachers saying ‘how high’? If teaching is to improve student learning, then shouldn’t students be the focus rather than some external entity who seems to want innovation just for the sake of it? But it’s not ‘innovation’ they want, is it? It’s a return on their investment.

I happened to dip into Horace Lucido’s Education genocide: A plague on our children again recently. In it, he cites a 1999 Merrill Lynch publication The book of knowledge: Investing in the growing education and training industry (a scary enough title) where they wrote: “A new mindset is necessary, one that views families as customers, schools as retail outlets where educational services are received, and the school board as a customer service department that hears and addresses parental concerns” (cited in Lucido, 2010, p. 61). He cites others who have similar ideas for education: “Fredrick Hess, editor of Educational entrepreneurship: Realities, challenges, possibilities makes the design on school quite clear: there are steps that would make K-12 schooling more attractive to for-profit investment … for one, imposing clear standards for judging educational effectiveness would reassure investors that ventures will be less subject to political brickbats and better positioned to succeed if demonstrably effective. A more performance-based environment enables investors to assess risk in a more informed, rational manner” (pp. 61–62).

Is that the iceberg? Corporate organisations? Big business? Those who can make money from the education ‘industry’? And yet, here we are, allowing them to dictate to us what our students need. Why are we so powerless? Who is fighting, really fighting for teachers … and more than that, who is really fighting for our children?