Education systems face important strategic challenges. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) may answer the question of “how” to do things, but can it answer the question of “what” to do?
Should we value skills over knowledge? Can someone be trained in critical thinking and at the same time teach their preferred ideological orthodoxy? Social studies (i.e., history, civics, economics) Without learning, how can young people with limited experience do critical thinking?
Does placing the responsibility on the education system to make major changes in society impede its core mission of teaching reading, writing, and mathematics? Should schools and school boards act as if they were parents? , or do parents have a role to play in their children’s education? Is there a contradiction between developing workers for business and developing good citizens for democracy?
Lloyd Lim
Makiki
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