Schools, Teachers and Students; Signs of a Crisis in Education (Cont’d)

There are reasons for thinking that all is not well in our schools. In this episode, host Laurance Splitter explores some of the difficulties experienced by teachers and students in our schools and classrooms. Many teachers are quitting because they are compelled to focus on administrative and assessment tasks, to the detriment of teaching excellence. They are experiencing greater levels of stress and anxiety, in a cycle which also embraces students and parents. One factor behind this growing sense of crisis is society’s failure to treat teachers as professionals who are empowered to make sensible decisions and exercise good judgement.Another factor is the tension between meeting the educational needs of all students, and the social reality of unprecedented forms of intellectual, cultural, physical, and economic diversity – a tension most clearly seen in public schools. Shifting the focus to students, attrition rates are increasing, meaning that more students leave school before they reach year twelve. Familiar issues of choosing between a traditional academic curriculum and one that serves future vocational needs remain unresolved. Responding to these challenges, Laurance goes back to such venerable educational ideals of teaching the whole person and cultivating powerful thinking in students. He advocates for a renewed emphasis on speaking and listening in the form of dialogue. Dialogue is not merely a way of thinking out loud, it produces good thinking. It invites students to think and talk about issues of importance to them, and offers a much-needed alternative to the echo chambers of casual conversation and social media. Connect with Dr. Laurance Splitter: LinkedIn