It’s a cliché to say that change comes too rapidly now for us to keep up, but clichés exist for one good reason: They’re often true.
In the case of education—an industry that claims to focus on the future but remains powerfully committed to the past—the truth that our minds can’t operate fast enough to track shifts in the world has critical implications. How do we develop a system of learning at a time when everything we know about learning is in flux?
The current arguments over the Common Core State Standards underscore our confusion. The impulse of the Common Core writers, surely shared by even those who disagree with specifics, is a noble one: To find an antidote to the narrow test-based accountability and laundry list of outcomes spawned by NCLB. By that measure, the Common Core is a healthy alternative, to be sure.