Let me tell you a story: Once upon a time a group of academics got together and came up with a plan to fix education… and thought this time might be different.
Thanks for this thoughtful review. It brings to mind Kieran Egan’s three (often conflicting) goals of education from The Educated Mind: socialization, academics, and individual development (for those interested, Brandon's epic review of the book is here: https://losttools.substack.com/p/the-book-review).
The strong emphasis on skills seems to lean toward socialization—preparing individuals for jobs, citizenship, and participation in society. Now, with this renewed focus on knowledge, the pendulum swings back toward academics—ensuring students grasp what is deemed true, good, and beautiful. But, as you point out, who decides what that knowledge should be? The answer inevitably varies by region, culture, ideology—and a whole lot more.
The more I think about it, the pursuit of a universal, standardized curriculum—a shared body of knowledge that defines an “educated person”—feels like a fool’s errand. But if we abandon that, do we risk an education that becomes too fragmented, too localized, reinforcing narrow worldviews instead? It’s a tricky balance.
Acknowledging my bias here (since we're both involved in the project!), I think that Egan's Learning in Depth concept overall *could* come close to balancing these competing priorities.
It's so tricky. You don't want to ask every teacher to develop their own complete curriculum but you equally don't want to impose everything from on high. It's really an interesting question as to how much freedom and authorship teachers should have over the curriculum. It's just such a huge thing that it's hard to hold in your head.
I think that I come down mostly on the side of providing something overarching as a support for new teachers, whether at a school, community or larger governmental level. It should probably have some built-in places for teachers to develop materials on their own and plenty of flexibility on methods of delivery.
I agree with you (unsurprisingly) that LiD has a lot to offer proponents of a number of different learning paradigms - whether that is preparing students for future learning, filling them with knowledge, or helping them develop as individuals.
Thanks for this thoughtful review. It brings to mind Kieran Egan’s three (often conflicting) goals of education from The Educated Mind: socialization, academics, and individual development (for those interested, Brandon's epic review of the book is here: https://losttools.substack.com/p/the-book-review).
The strong emphasis on skills seems to lean toward socialization—preparing individuals for jobs, citizenship, and participation in society. Now, with this renewed focus on knowledge, the pendulum swings back toward academics—ensuring students grasp what is deemed true, good, and beautiful. But, as you point out, who decides what that knowledge should be? The answer inevitably varies by region, culture, ideology—and a whole lot more.
The more I think about it, the pursuit of a universal, standardized curriculum—a shared body of knowledge that defines an “educated person”—feels like a fool’s errand. But if we abandon that, do we risk an education that becomes too fragmented, too localized, reinforcing narrow worldviews instead? It’s a tricky balance.
Acknowledging my bias here (since we're both involved in the project!), I think that Egan's Learning in Depth concept overall *could* come close to balancing these competing priorities.
It's so tricky. You don't want to ask every teacher to develop their own complete curriculum but you equally don't want to impose everything from on high. It's really an interesting question as to how much freedom and authorship teachers should have over the curriculum. It's just such a huge thing that it's hard to hold in your head.
I think that I come down mostly on the side of providing something overarching as a support for new teachers, whether at a school, community or larger governmental level. It should probably have some built-in places for teachers to develop materials on their own and plenty of flexibility on methods of delivery.
I agree with you (unsurprisingly) that LiD has a lot to offer proponents of a number of different learning paradigms - whether that is preparing students for future learning, filling them with knowledge, or helping them develop as individuals.