(From the ISHN Member information service) ISHN and ASCD have been sponsoring an international dialogue on how health 7 social programs can be integrated within education systems. One aspect of that suggests that H&S advocates should support a broad, liberal and student-centered approach to learning as outlined in the ASCD Whole Child approach. However, should we also be asking H&S advocates if they are actually doing that in their various instructional programs that seek to teach specific knowledge and skills about particular health or social topics? A recent blog underlines this question when it describes the difference between education and training (or education based on outdated factory models).
The blog article, appearing in the Smart Blog on Education (Jun 9, 2014) suggests that " Our traditional approach to schools was based on a factory model where workers had to be “trained” to perform actions and repeat them in the same way and at the same time. Anything that distracted them from performing the way the factory prescribed was just a distraction to be extinguished as quickly as possible. A person’s natural interests, including the desire to socially connect to others, needed to be put aside in favor of the required work. Workers needed to be “trained” in a way of acting that was foreign to how they were naturally wired to learn. Since the work they did was arbitrary, relatively meaningless and tedious, they needed to be rewarded for performing in a certain way and penalized for performing in a different way." "In this factory model of schools, character and social/emotional skills are not integrated into the interactions between teachers and students. There is one main social skill: Do what you are told. Policymakers recognizing that schools are missing this social/character element decided to have character education and social emotional skill training inserted into the traditional structure of schools." "The environment and structure of a school sends a message to students that very often contradicts the content of many social emotional and character education programs. In addition, when the basic structure of schools does not change, neither do the attitudes of many teachers. It’s not surprising that many of them view these programs just as add-ons or distractions from teaching academic content. ".Instead of training students, schools should be educating them. Education comes from the Latin words e and ducere–meaning to lead out of. Education therefore is not about creating skills and abilities in people who are blank slates waiting to be shaped and molded. Education assumes that people come ready to learn with special abilities, capacities, interests and affinities, and need guidance and support from human relationships for their unique human qualities to come out."
Based on this analysis, can we truly say that we are guiding students to learn about their health and social development based on their interests, needs and abilities, OR, are we designing instructional programs to teach specific, predetermined content to all students based on a factory style approach?
Based on this analysis, can we truly say that we are guiding students to learn about their health and social development based on their interests, needs and abilities, OR, are we designing instructional programs to teach specific, predetermined content to all students based on a factory style approach?
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