1. All Aboard the Standards Express! Marion Brady Note: Frame animation is complete when the blue arrow appears. Left-click the mouse (point anywhere) to advance to the next frame.

2. 2 Most people assume that content should be standardized. Long before there were state standards for school subjects, content was so standardized the same textbooks and corporately-produced tests could be sold nationwide. Content is education-speak for whats taught.

3. 3 For reasons not clear, the business leaders, politicians, and wealthy philanthropists now running the education show arent satisfied with the old level of standardization. They want every kid in America to study exactly the same content.

4. 4 That extreme degree of standardization creates serious problems. To that end, theyre pressuring states to adopt national standards.

5. 5 First problem: Were in an information explosion. Theres only time to teach, maybe, about 0.00000001% of all there is to know. Whos qualified to say what that 0.00000001% should be?

6. 6 Second Problem: Every kid is different …has different interests, abilities, potential, experience, assets, liabilities, needs. Forcing standard content on un-standardized, un- standardizable kids wastes intellectual potential and learner enthusiasm. Can America afford this loss?

7. 7 201120122015202020302060 …a future unlike the present and the past. Third Problem: The young will do their living in the future,… Who knows which content theyll need in order to survive in that future? 2013

8. 8 These three problems are being ignored. Standards and tests are being cranked out for the content of school subjects as if Knowledge is static, Kids identical, The future predictable. 2060

9. 9 Because todays solutions wont solve tomorrows problems, the young will need content thats not in any textbook (or anywhere else). Theyll have to generate it themselves. Big mistake. Very big mistake.

10. 10 create, innovate, imagine alternatives. Your childrens and grandchildrens survival will depend on their ability to

11. 11 Creating new knowledge (content) is a basic skill, and traditional schooling isnt developing it. Inescapable, hard conclusion: The young arent being equipped to survive.

12. 12 To create new content, learners must examine, explore, inspect, investigate… …real-world experience.

13. 13 …real world experience, e.g.: What waste does this school generate? Where does it go? Where will it be when youre 60 years old?

14. 14 …real world experience, e.g.: Make a map that shows (or describe in words) the main ways your neighbor- hood has changed in the last 50 years. What changes are likely in the next 20 years? Will your neighborhood be better or worse? Why? (Defend your conclusion.) Explain why the changes happened.

15. 15 …real world experience, e.g.: Figure out how much it costs to get everyone to your school on an average day.

16. 16 To deal with content-creating tasks, kids have to do more that just remember something taught. They have to THINK FOR THEMSELVES – infer, hypothesize, generalize, relate, synthesize, make value judgments, and so on.

17. 17 Think for themselves? That creates a problem. The present standards and accountability education reform effort is data-driven. The data comes from standardized test scores. But nobody knows how to write standardized, machine-scored test questions that measure the quality of original content!

18. 18 Think about that. To keep their jobs, teachers have to teach to tests of EXISTING content. How likely, then, are they to assign work that requires learners to create NEW content?

19. 19 Given the money and power of the fans of the standards and accountability fad, the reform train theyve set in motion is too big, has gone too far, and is moving too fast, to derail.

20. 20 But if America is to reach the 22 nd century in anything like recognizable form, that train isnt going where America must go.

21. 21 We ignore those problems… Exploding information Individual differences Unknown future …at our peril.

22. 22 For those curious about tools to stimulate original, content-creating thought, we have an instructional program: Connections: Investigating Reality. Its designed primarily for adolescents and older learners. Its free.

23. 23 Because Connections main instructional resource is the first-hand experience of those who use it,… conceptual concreteness, relevance, intrinsic motivation, and complex thought …are inherent.

24. 24 Connections: Investigating Reality is just a start – a rough draft of a comprehensive scope and sequence (education-speak for what to teach, in what order). For this reason, its accompanied by a tool allowing users to communicate and collaborate to improve it continuously.

25. 25 Below is a link to the course. Its ready to use, and, if necessary, can be worked into present schooling without making bureaucratic waves. Again: Its free.* Connections : Investigating Reality *To individual educators and teaching teams for use with their classes. Publication rights limited. Copyright © 2007, 2009 by Howard Brady and Marion Brady. http://www.marionbrady.comhttp://www.marionbrady.com

26. 26 To encourage dialog, this presentation is offered free of charge, and may be used, duplicated and distributed in its original form without permission of the author. Excerpts must follow fair use rules, with proper credits. Copyright © 2009 by Marion Brady and Howard Brady. Marion Brady 4285 North Indian River Drive Cocoa, Florida 32927 Email: mbrady22@cfl.rr.commbrady22@cfl.rr.com Slideshows in this series: The World Has Changed Information Overload Passive or Active Learning? The Invisible Elephant All Aboard the Standards Express! http://www.marionbrady.com