We need new goals for education

 In every state and in every school district, they write the vision and goals for the education of all of the children in this country.  The goals are often written in general terms and include a wide range of skills and knowledge.  However, when we ask how well our schools are doing, we automatically think about student test scores.  If the scores on intellectual skills are not what we expect, then we are upset and want a remediation program to close the gap of learning.  We put a lot of money and effort into a program to increase student math and reading test scores and we feel great if the scores improve even the slightest amount and we shake our heads if the score are still low and might try another program that is thought would increase test scores.

But, how about all the other goals in the curriculum?  There are many goals about student creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and other higher-order thinking skills.  There are also many goals about skills in developing musical, artistic, and physical skills.  There are also goals in developing student emotional and psychological well being.  We don't tend to look to see if students are meeting these non-intellectual goals.  Student creativity or critical thinking might be below expectations for an age group but we don't do anything about it.  We should develop a remediation program to improve student creativity and/or critical thinking, like we do when test scores are low in math or reading.  We should take all the other goals for our students as seriously as we take reading and math scores.  

What is happening in schools is the devaluation of humanity.  We treat humans like they are robots who need to be programmed with data and they should be able to spew out answers.  We are humans.  Humans have feelings and emotional and spiritual needs for self-esteem and self-actualization.  

We need new goals for our children and these goals need to be the goals that we all should have as human beings.  Our goals should align with our needs.  Our needs are to grow and develop all of our skills and abilities in a holistic manner.  Reading, writing, and arithmetic have been the three basics of education for too many years.  We need new basics of education and the three new basics of education should be freedom, love, and joy.  I have written quite a bit about these basics for human life and for education.  Before blowing me off, you should read more about what I am saying.  

Look around and see all the violence, fear, and depression in our society and in our children.  When we make test scores the most important goal, then we ignore the other areas of growth and development our children need.  We get what we ask for.  We might get students who score OK on test scores but we also get students who feel left out, ignored, confused, angry, and frustrated.  We do not get students who can be self-responsible, creative, thoughtful, and happy.  Our students will not be able to think critically, solve problems, or empathize with others.  

We need to take action as soon as possible.  We should transform schools into constructivist schools based on new goals for human growth and development and we need to stop using tests as the measure for our success in schools.  Our schools are failing but it's not the test scores that makes them a failure.  The failure of our schools is our inability to create goals in alignment with our human needs.