What School Could Be — Ted Dintersmith
I decided to read the book, What School Could Be by Ted Dintersmith in January.
In 2016, Dintersmith decided to take a 9-month trip to visit schools all across the United States. He visioned that he was going to write about how school systems in the United States are broken and outdated. In a pleasant turn of events, he actually ended up writing a book about how teachers and schools all across the United States are changing the way we educate the next generation.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I finished reading the book and there are a few main lessons I took from Dintersmith’s findings.
1. School system in the United States is outdated.
We are still educating children the same way we have been educating for decades and decades, even though the workforce is changing rapidly. The subjects we are teaching our children is not preparing them in our world.
2. We educate to prepare children for tests, instead of real life.
Dintersmith made an excellent point of how the current school system is designed to prepare students for tests, instead of real life. We force students to memorize formulas just for a test. Students often forget the formula or never use it again in their life again.
3. Characteristics like grit are not being considered.
Angela Duckworth argued in a Ted talk and book titled, Grit, that the one characteristic that determines someone's success is grit. Success is not determined by intelligence or social status instead is it determined on how someone is gritty about a particular goal.
4. Project-based learning is best.
Instead of teaching equations in math, it is best to include these subjects in project-based learning. Being in the work-force for several years now, I see how different real-life job is versus the standard school learning structure.
5. Failure should be more encouraged.
The traditional school system is designed in a way that students know that they either succeeded at a test or failed it. Failure is looked like a bad thing when the reality is that all successful people failed one way or another during their journey. Failure shouldn't be the endpoint and shouldn't be looked like a terrible thing, instead, we should encourage students to look at their mistakes and see ways they can do better next time. We should encourage kids to try new things, fail, and try again. That is the only way to develop an innovative mindset!
