While I agree with the nuts and bolts of Education Week's latest opinion essay, "Reimagining Schools in a New Year," it is the loftier - and, perhaps thus more out-of-focus - goal of "develop[ing] youngsters who are innovators" that needs to be examined more closely. "Innovator" is a kind of spin word, meant to excite and inspire, but it doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with schooling. Of course, no teacher wants to smother her students' creative spirit. But is it really the job of three million U.S. teachers to turn every one of our 55 million students into "innovators"? How much innovation can humanity really stand? And when does constant and endless innovation turn into nothing much more than an inability to commit?
Yes, we can and should reimagine and reform American education. But let's do it backwards, as if we were planning a lesson. What habits of thought and action should characterize a well-educated American in the 21st century? Once we've figured that out, we can innovate just enough to achieve it.
