Once and for All

What can be fixed “once and for all”?

Nothing.

Seriously, even the mountains change.  The earth’s crust moves.  All that we think of as “unchanging” and “permanent” - - - changes.  There is no data that suggests that something complex, like a system for educating people, will not need to flex, change, and be adapted.  

When public education moved west into rural areas many farm people resisted it.  They believed they needed their children at home to work.  They believed that if their children learned to farm, do chores, cook and sew, their lives would be good.  Book-learning was not necessary.

How did that work out?  

The world changed, farming became more complex, a small farm would not support all the children when they became adults and married and had children.  Some were required to move to town, move west, move elsewhere in order to survive.  In one lifetime the need for education changed and the skills -- thinking skills - required to survive and even do well changed.  And there was the Dust Bowl. 

Change in society, change in child development, change in what children learn at home, change in societal pressures, and many, many other changes require changes in a complex system like that of public education.  Planning for a system that will be useful for ALL our children, and ALL children yet to be born and yet to immigrate into our country must include planning for appropriate and useful change along with all the changes that will be taking place in our society, our nation, and our cultures.  That will take some very broad and very deep thinking.  Will we be up to the challenge?