"Mechanical Pencils": Finding Balance between Basics and Forward Thinking

Our school is launching an Ad Hoc Committee to plan our school's technology needs.   Jokingly or not, someone responded, "Mechanical pencils!" A few chortled at the response, and then we moved on. But the question remains.

When parents, community members, and business leaders express their woes about education, the back to basics concept is held up as a holy grail: Arithmetic, Reading, Writing, and perhaps Vocabulary, Spelling, Manners, Life Skills, and Penmanship.  I am not even sure I disagree with them,  Of course I want my children and students to be able to multiply in their heads and print legibly.  There must be room in 14 years of schooling (from JK to Grade 12) to ensure some degree of competence in such basic skills without compromising the rich, meaningful, personalized learning that has become the ideal in today's education.

I believe that we could find agreement among stakeholders about what basic skills are non-negotiable in the learning process.  In fact, many schools are developing exactly that: a "Non-negotiable" curriculum for each grade (Common Core in the US and Non-Negotiables in the UK). An infographic that captures such trends was compiled from a survey by Education Week. The danger of course is that a "back to basics" approach will fall into a "drill and kill" pattern, with some children falling short of mastery.  What about the value of student-centred exploration, project-based learning, interdisciplinary connections, differentiation, choice, and personalization?

Excerpt, "Teaching Well-being in Schools" from pioneer in Positive Psychology, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, full article can be read here.

First, a quiz: 

Question one: in one or two words, what do you most want for your children?If you are like the thousands of parents I’ve polled you responded, “Happiness,” “Confidence,” “Contentment,” “Fulfillment,” “Balance,” “Good stuff,” “Kindness,” “Health,” “Satisfaction,” “Love,” “Being civilized,” “Meaning,” and the like. In short, well-being is your topmost priority for your children. 

Question two: in one or two words, what do schools teach?If you are like other parents, you responded, “Achievement,” “Thinking skills,” “Success,” “Conformity,” “Literacy,” “Math,” “Work,” “Test taking,” “Discipline,” and the like. In short, what schools teach is how to succeed in the workplace.

Notice that there is almost no overlap between the two lists.

Yet parent would not want the so-called academic skills abandoned and often do not trust approaches to teaching that differ from the way they were taught.

The pendulum swings back and forth, and we need to find a balance.  Parents want their kids to come home excited about what they are learning.  Students who want to learn are more apt as pupils.  As long as we work from a belief that all kids can learn functional skills (barring neurological impairments) , the expertise of the teacher and school should be harnessed to recognize and facilitate students' personal learning readiness, providing an environment where all can thrive.

So, it is not a balance between back-to-basics (i.e. mechanical pencils) and innovative methodology (i.e. student blogs) that we need.   It is immersion in both, where each provides fuel for the other.