I start most weekend mornings checking my email and the latest news. Many of the articles that I read are the articles featured on yahoo and the NY Times. What I do usually is scan for ones that seem either interesting or important to me. This Sunday morning I came across an article from the Associated Press on Obama’s plan to overhaul NCLB. As someone who is not particularly a fan of NCLB, I was eager to read what Obama was proposing. From the article I learned that "One of the things America has not been clear about is what k-12 is supposed to do," Amy Wilkins a vice president for Education Trust in D.C said. "In this, we're saying K-12 is supposed to prepare kids for college and meaningful careers," (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_education).
After reading the article I thought to myself that this was a practical way of thinking about the goal of education, yet it didn’t sound quite right to me. However when I read the MacArthur foundation research report on Living and Leaning with new media, I was particularly stuck when it was said that “Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally? (http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/files/report/digitalyouth-WhitePaper.pdf)
After reading this one sentence I was amazed at how it so simply summed up my opinion of what education should be about. It seemed to be a more inclusive statement that I think reflects the versatility and value of an education that prepares individuals with the necessary thinking skills needed to respond to real life situations.
So although it seems that school reform is heading in the right direction, the people behind legislative reform should think about how heading in a more current direction that includes integrating technology into the classroom helps to develop skills for today. As the MIT, Education Arcade paper argues, this approach promotes a more social way of encountering the world.