Love for learning
The conventional belief is that to adequately prepare our students for the 21st century workforce, we should raise their standard of academic achievement. For high school students, this means creating an environment in which high schools offer as many advanced placement classes as possible so that their students are properly prepared for college. For kindergarten through 12th grade students, this means that current students would be required to learn and achieve more at a younger age than students in previous generations have.
Are we on the right path in better preparing our students for the 21st century workforce, or are we, in our overzealous drive for global competitiveness, jeopardizing America's future?
Many discussions have considered topics such as what makes a good school, the impact of competent and inspiring educators, and the role of a supportive family and social system as means of achieving educational success and closing the achievement gaps.
However, little consideration has been given to the child as an individual. I am not talking about differential learning or individualized curriculum but, rather, the individual child's capacity to learn at the pace and maturity level (chronological age) where he or she can absorb advance concepts.
As a lifelong volunteer in various facets of education and as a parent, I can say with confidence that the best service we can provide for our students and the best way to prepare them for the future workforce is to instill in them the love for learning. When children enjoy learning, they will achieve. When children view education as a burden, they will fail.
Learning can be a quest to satisfy intellectual curiosity and not be a chore. Learning that promotes creative thinking requires a positive environment and time, inputs that are not provided in classrooms that must adhere to constantly escalating standardized achievement benchmarks.
Need we wait another decade to witness another wave of technology-savvy Advanced Placement scholars who choose not to enter careers in math, science, and engineering because they are intellectually burned out? If a four-year college program is not adequate time to prepare students for the 21st century workforce, let's make it a five-year program instead of forcing a year of college education on our K-12 students. Let's not kill the joy of learning for a 6-year-old by requiring that he knows as much if not more than we did at that tender age.
Until we properly consider how the human brain absorbs and deciphers information at the appropriate maturity level, we will continue to waste money, time and resources trying to achieve standards that are not conducive to learning success. We must find ways to challenge our students without killing their natural intellectual curiosity.
— Mai Jenke, Hawthorn Woods
It is heartening to read that the Chicago Tribune has identified reviving troubled neighborhoods as an urgent challenge to address in its new Plan of Chicago. Among the issues residing in these locations are public education, jobs, violence, family stability, absent social services, food deserts and a crumbling infrastructure.
Here is a possible connection to make: Two-thirds of all corporations in Illinois pay no corporate income taxes to the state, and current laws hide their identity. But imagine hundreds of those tax-exempt corporations in Chicago investing that money in the city's neighborhoods. Envision the likes of Boeing embracing Englewood, Chase Bank committing to Humboldt Park and United Airlines landing in Austin. That would make the presence of these corporations valuable to the entire city in real terms.
When tourists from around the world come to Chicago first to see how we have restored our neighborhoods before they go to Millennium Park to photograph themselves reflected in "The Bean," then we will know that Chicago truly has become a world-class city — but not before then.
— Phil Blackwell, senior minister, the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple
Of all the proposals the Tribune has printed for A New Plan of Chicago, "Chicago's water, Chicago's future; Imagination and restoration can create jobs, monetize a resource and improve our environment" (Perspective, Dec. 26), by Debra Shore, a commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, is the most important and sensible article that I have read. It was carefully thought through for the future. Mayor Rahm Emanuel needs to consider these suggestions.
— Judith Sarnat, Highland Park