As you scroll on down this blog you
will find that among the articles that I have posted in the course of the last
two weeks, there are many from PART
TWO: Analysis, from my nearly
complete new book, Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current Condition, Future Prospect. That phase of the book follows sequentially
upon PART ONE: Facts, which conveys a bevy of objective
facts pertinent to the inner workings of the Minneapolis Public Schools. By contrast, PART TWO: Analysis, features
my interpretation of the objective facts, giving my view of the many weaknesses
but also the strengths that I see in the organization of the Minneapolis Public
Schools, particularly those pertinent to the vital areas of curriculum, teaching,
tutoring, family outreach, and resource allocation.
With the placement of this article, I now provide
the first of several snippets that you will read from PART THREE: Philosophy, in
which I present my vision for the transformation of the Minneapolis Public Schools
into a model for the locally centralized school district, with a guiding philosophy
of education that emphasizes knowledge-intensive curriculum and teachers
trained to deliver such a curriculum.
Please now read this article, which presents
many of the most important ideas from PART
THREE: Philosophy.
A Better
Way: Toward a K-12 Education of
Substance
Imagine the Minneapolis Public Schools improving so thoroughly as to become a model urban central school district that similar organizations in other cities can utilize as reference for their own overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the central school district.
In
my new book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education)
focused on the subject areas of economics, political science, psychology, world
religions, world history, American history, African American history,
literature, English usage, fine arts, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and
physics; I am providing the knowledge and skill set that
would provide the essence of the curriculum productive of
well-educated graduates of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).
Based on such a solid base of academic information and skills, graduates
of MPS would possess knowledge that even our present version of university
graduates in the United States would be happy to remember from courses in the given
subject areas.
Imagine
school classrooms from the K-5 level forward that are replete with academic
resources of both the venerable print and the contemporary technological sort. Hold in your consciousness an image
of classroom walls and hallways filled with maps of continents,
nations, and ecosystems from throughout the world; and with prints of great works of art and
visual representations (paintings, photographs, and sculpture) of historical
personages of great thought and accomplishment.
Consider
the transformative lifetime impact on young people who fully function at grade
level in mathematics and reading and then follow academically committed
teachers on a journey through the exciting world of knowledge. Think about
the effects on the lives of our precious young people, alive in the world of
knowledge and excited by the banter of teachers who truly love them and who effortlessly
blend academic, comedic, and culturally attuned comments into their verbal
expressions, their communications, their teaching.
Imagine
schools as genuine places of knowledge acquisition that welcome students, their
families, and community members to the sites and into the hallways of learning
and ethics. Into these hallways would come experts from the
realms of academia, business, government, social service, and theology to talk
to MPS students and their families in a setting alive with the love of knowledge
and ethical action--- and to engage in lively intellectual encounters with
teachers capable of exchanging informed views with people of enormous
information bases and great expertise.
Ethics
would be an important topic for discussion in the schools of the future for
MPS, with powerful conversations flowing in consideration of ethical precepts
from the world's great religious traditions, applied in the context of an
extensive knowledge base acquired both through dedicated academic study and
active engagement with the workaday world:
Young
people and their families would be invited to participate in discussions
focused on the nature of the good, the beautiful, and the empathic--- for the
express purpose of advancing human understanding and promoting peaceful,
productive relationships among people.
Imagine beckoning
rooms in our schools from the K-5 level forward that are packed with
great classic and contemporary works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry;
performance stages; technological resource area; media
center; kitchen for student use; along with conventional classrooms
used for traditional purposes and as centers for discussion, lectures, and
speeches.
Imagine
schools from the K-5 level forward that include spaces for instruction in the
vocational and technical arts, arranged for particular students upon expressed
interest, so that the transmission of liberal arts knowledge would flourish
alongside instruction that could include auto repair, plumbing, electrical
work, carpentry, and various other vocational arts.
Minneapolis
in general and North Minneapolis specifically would become much better places
for our young people and their families to dwell--- very much including
those who are my personal passion: those who have been mired
in cyclical familial poverty for generations. Schools would become
tangible expressions of the joy of knowing and understanding the great world
and universe, centers of information and wisdom in the midst of a
community that radiates love of knowledge, ethical conduct, human beings.
I
am developing the New Salem Educational Initiative as a vanguard community,
formed by the 125 students and family members in my network, with the view of
educating hordes of others interested in increasing their knowledge in all
manner of subjects and coming to a place where ethics and moral conduct are
treated as cherished guides to human action and interaction.
A
very definite component of my vision is the transformation of the image of the
North Minneapolis community that I love, from the perception of a place of
destitution and violence to the recognized center of advanced academic
knowledge and elevated ethical conduct.
This can and must
happen in the future overhaul of K-12 education at the level of the
locally centralized school district, with the Minneapolis Public Schools
serving as model to a world that must thrive on the basis of knowledge and
ethics, rather than perishing for a lack thereof.
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