ing that, with the exception of the last few decades, when the curriculum became much more focused on memorization and test taking, and less on a well-rounded classroom ap- proach, the only 21st century skill that has not been part of the great Western tradition of learning for at least two thousand years is computer literacy. So it seems apparent from the outset that the dichotomy in the current argument is mostly a false one.
A good beginning in looking at what Professor Linda Darling-Hammond (1998) calls the “cur- riculum wars,” (p, 151) is to remember that there are two kinds of pedagogy that are neces- sary for a child to succeed in this brave new century; they are called didactic and maieutic - loosely interpreted as pushing facts and pulling opinions. All teaching is difficult; but push- ing facts is less difficult since it is more prescriptive, familiar, and measurable. However, just because teaching children to think critically, solve problems, communicate, and collaborate in forming opinions is not easy is no reason it should not be done. After all, the new smart economy needs these skills, and we know that children already possess these nascent skills, not to mention the fact that their emotional need for safety is not best served by teaching only to the state-mandated tests.
Ever since the 1960s and 1970s when computer scanners became readily available, too many educators began taking the easy, or perhaps cheaper, route for testing. The only problem then as now was that technology could only distinguish between ovals filled in with a pencil and ones left blank; inevitably then, when relying on technology to grade tests, questions and answers had to be posed as multiple choices. A single answer was the desired response. So we changed the way we taught - not for sound best practice reasons, but because of tech- nological limitations and a desire to reduce costs. We allowed computer technology to shape education, rather than using technology to help shape teaching.
Children do not come into this world knowing the periodic table or chemical symbols; nei- ther can they intuit historical, geographic, or scientific facts. The objective, provable, and testable facts pertaining to their world are not burned into their brains at birth. This means they must learn and memorize; and that’s why didactic teaching has a big place in the cur- riculum. But didactic teaching/learning is only the push part of what should be the holistic classroom experience. The other is the maieutic or pull learning, which in large part is about the much-discussed “21st century” skills that in fact have been around for millennia.
Teachers have been trained in best practices when it comes to the didactic method of push- ing facts as is only right and proper. Our children must know a lot of facts as part of their state testing. Further, as Bloom has identified, memory and knowledge are at the base of our thinking. We have to have a foundation. But the foundation only is incomplete in both
Virginia Educational Leadership
Vol. 7 No. 1
Spring 2010
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