Bill said:
Yes! I hope so. STW has had some interesting effects. I'll be
brief. I
attended a stw conference a couple of years ago at Long Beach.
It was
quite exciting the way the folks were talking about the
integration of real
contexts from community and work that would help to make
relevant the
things the students were learning. Folks seemed to take Dewey's
ideas
seriously. There seemed to be some real promise for kids to
learn
something that would help them get good jobs without a college
degree,
something that is out of reach of many. A couple of projects at
TERC have
been working in this direction.
Phil said:
Sounds somewhat like Soviet communism and even more like
Mussolini-style
fascism.
I struggle with the issue of school to work for the same reasons
that Bill and Phil mentioned. On one hand school to work could
serve as an important transition for many students that in
currently lacking. One aspect of the Soviet education system
that impressed Dewey was the connection/transition of school and
work. Gardner argues for a similar type of program in the
middle school not the high school ages. As Bill mentioned if
has the potential to make education valid for children who are
unable to make meaning out of our idealist approach to
education. Uria Brofenbrenner makes a similar argument in The
State of Americans in that there is no transition from
adolescence to adulthood for many in our society.
School to Work is probaly more based on Germany's model, when
Clinton was elected we was very impressed with Germany's
apprenticeship model. I think Phil's warning/comment is word
heeding, but do not think the solution can be found in
continueing an idealist form of education where the assumption
is everyone will or will want to go to college. I have problems
with school to work because it is a model that puts the needs of
the corporation or even social production ahead of the needs of
children. While there are programs as Bill mentioned that are
pedogogically driven, I see ecomonic/political aspects of school
to work that need to be realized. For example, in Wisconsin's
W2 program the focus was not on transitioning workers into
family supporting jobs, but rather filling the employee gap of
low wage jobs. The problem, which I don't see as a problem, was
the wage of those in the service industry was increasing because
a lack of a labor pool. The focus of W2 was filling this void
so the wage of service jobs could continue to be low wage jobs.
We need to approach "school to work" from a pedogogical not a
business model. We need to be careful that we are not producing
or reproducing the class system that already exists. Education
was excluded from W2 primarily because it was being used by the
poor as an avenue for social mobility and this was a threat to
middle class who saw there opportunities diminishing. I think
many European model do a better job at preparing the majority of
its society for work and adultthood, but it is usually at the
price of reproducing the already exising class system. In
school to work models I think its important that we keep the
system open, unlike the recent move of the N.Y. mayor with the
city college. My knowledge of most European systems is that
they are closed and closed rather early in the educational
process. As in any big movement, I think its important as
educators that the pedogogical needs of school to work remain
central and not become dominated with the societal and corporate
needs of school to work.
Nate
Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/
schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu
People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds,
People who possess strong feelings even people with great minds
and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys
and girls
L.S. Vygotsky