5 Suggestions in Education for the Next Indiana Governor
To the next governor of Indiana, and heads of teaching institutions everywhere in the state, I humbly suggest the following for your consideration, when it comes to the future of Indiana and its citizens relative to education.
1. Fund and focus on the basics in pre-K — reading, writing, and arithmetic. These are the basic building blocks of all education, and in early education, we really need educators to focus on these in the classroom. Not teaching cursive handwriting anymore was an epic mistake. And in some of the most tech-able parts of the country, like Silicon Valley, schools go old school without computers.
Kids aren’t reading books anymore, or hand writing anything. We need to return to these basics before we skip ahead and have children start computer programming — and I’m one of the biggest fans of STEM education out there!
2. Fund and support MAKING THINGS — Our state is abysmally behind on maker spaces, or places where students and communities can build things. While we are lucky to have places like the Design Bank (http://www.designbankindy.com) and Club Cyberia (http://www.clubcyberia.org) in Indianapolis, we need MORE spaces where people can work with their hands and make things. Create. It would be GREAT to see more of these spaces in our public library system in Indiana.
3. Support intra & entrepreneurial behavior inside the classroom — Support bringing real world entrepreneurs into the classroom and after school programs that foster entrepreneurial behavior. Even the higher education professions aren’t thinking about the coming change in 40% of the US workforce becoming freelancers by 2020. The way to approach work as a freelancer or entrepreneur has some very different skill sets to it that schools just aren’t teaching — such as: discipline, sales, business development, implementing ideas, soft skills (like empathy), problem hunting and solving, independence, and creativity. And while one might be able to teach entrepreneurship, the best teachers in entrepreneurship are those who have actually been entrepreneurs. Until you’ve lived how truly difficult it is to set up, form and run a business, you can’t appreciate how hard it really is to do well — that’s why you MUST get entrepreneurial practitioners into the classrooms.
4. Support intra & entrepreneurial behavior outside the classroom — I think it might be wise to consider taxing royalties less as well in the state in order to encourage the arts to flourish here. Tax breaks for films produced in Indiana, decreasing taxes on royalties for authors — these also are methods to attract and retain the creative class. It feels like we are doing this with sports in this state — why not also do it with the artists?
To be clear, this doesn’t necessarily mean more co-working spaces in the state either. As an entrepreneur, I can work anywhere. What I’d like to see instead are more venues, events and programs that support development of the small business owner, which currently seems to be lacking now that the office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship in the state has no executive director. It feels like supporting entrepreneurs in the state is not a priority of the current administration’s office. Can we turn it around and offer a state wide leadership program for early and mid-level experienced entrepreneurs?
5. Support higher education creating shorter and more affordable programs for returning to education as working adults — There is no way at all I could have ever returned to graduate school myself without flexible programs for people who are already working, because I am a single professional who has to support myself. Of the 3 graduate programs I attended, only 1 of them was based in Indiana, so my time and money went to furthering my education in other states. But why, when we have so many great schools here?
I’d like to see the government provide some types of incentives to universities and colleges that step up and provide curriculum that is shorter in duration, for working professionals. Not everyone has the time and money for a full degree program, and we need to nimbly re-tool the workforce to learn flexibly, on the fly in order to stay competitive. If any higher education programs need certifications as an example, here’s an entire grid of them in healthcare alone.
That’s my educational wish list for Indiana moving forward — I just hope the candidates for IN governor are paying attention to the epic changes happening in our world, so they may position Indiana for a successful future.
