Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World

I may have found a book that FINALLY puts the whole "curriculum for a digital world through the real-world technology skills and cultural literacy collaboration blah blah blah" mindset into a perspective that's more than just fluff. Today I started reading this book by Heidi Hayes Jacobs with the first chapter, called "A New Essential Curriculum for a New Time." It introduced a lot of sporadic thoughts, but those thoughts present some serious defense for the author's developing educational paradigm.

I particularly identify with the historical traditions establishing the contemporary educational methods......we go with what we know. What we know has been rows of desks, with a blackboard at the front of the room for the students to copy from, and then homework to finish and turn in the next day. That isn't our design because it's necessarily the best anymore....just because that's how it's been! Our standards (another point the author addresses) fit with that design, not because they are the best method of achieving that level of learning, but because that's the only way to quantify the learning that takes place in the rows with the blackboards. So we shouldn't really be looking at the standards for our educational revamp, we should be looking at our revamp of education to revamp education.........the structure probably isn't even the right fit in the first place!

I'm sticking with this book until the end of GEM, so I'm actually excited to find out how this author has developed the ideas I've wrestled with myself.