Introduction

...Is it no longer true that one of the "whats" we must teach is an acceptance of country, not only of ethnic group and self...

...Martin Trow observes that the colleges and universities are now approaching the condition the high schools reached decades ago—universal attendance, which means a high degree of involuntary attendance With the changing motivations of the student body, the traditional college curriculum is rapidly crumbling In fact, the onslaught of the personal, the spontaneous, the subjective, the "inner vision," against the impersonal, the ordered, the objective, the outer realities, is taking place on every level of the educational enterprise From Barbara Leondar's counterschools to Martin Trow's colleges and universities, a new world view seems to have taken the offensive against the older patterns that have been so solidly established for so long (the standard college curriculum is 50-60 years old) we scarcely know how to justify them One of Trow's concerns is how the older "bookish" learning can survive the counterculture's ascendancy, he urges reforms that accommodate the new styles without discarding the old Jesse R Pitts, however, is quite ready to abandon many of the bookish aspects of higher education If youth wants freedom, adventure and fraternity, they should have it—but in ways that hopefully save, rather than destroy, them and the world Based on a solid understanding of what is happening to youth and education, Pitts' heroic effort to develop a new curriculum is as valid for high schools (some would say more valid...

...Introduction BY NATHAN GLAZER, Consulting Editor THE KEY WORD in the question The New Leader has posed to the six writers whose articles follow is 'what " At least for me, this is a fresh question in the present context of discussion about schooling Not "how," which seems to be the mam concern of the young leformers who have entered the classroom m such substantial numbers in recent years, not "who," which seems to be the mam concern of the antagonists in the battles over local control and licensing restrictions, not under what system of organization," not "where will the money come from," not "when will the classroom be integrated," not even "can we keep the peace"—but ' what," the prime question of all, and the one most obscured for the past seven or eight years Of course, "what" cannot easily be divorced from "how," "who," "when," etc If our aim is to teach children decorum, it will have one set of consequences for these subsequent questions, if our aim is to create loyal and patriotic citizens—or, alternatively, to create revolutionaries—it will have another, if we want to teach literacy and numeracy (to adopt a useful term from England), it will have yet another But to my mind we must first determine what we want to emerge from an enormously expensive educational enterprise that consumes as much of the Gross National Product as all our health services, whose costs increase at a rate far exceeding growth in grip, and whose aims are, at the moment, more confused and uncertain than those of most other public endeavors Inevitably, the question "what' has a somewhat conservative cast It reminds one ot the post-Sputnik controversy, of Why Johnny Can't Read or Why Ivan Can Read What Johnny Can't, of the denunciation of teachers' education The 1960s changed all that They were marked by the struggle over segregation, the war on poverty and the various programs for school children and pieschool children that emerged from it, the rise of black militancy—soon enough communicated to Chica-nos, Puerto Ricans, American Indians and others?with its challenge to every institution in the society, but especially the schools, and most significantly, the phenomenal rise of the "counterculture,' the new lifestyles and values before which the schools were helpless Beginning in the colleges, the counterculture spread rapidly into the high schools, and even to the grade schools Today the entire system of formal education seems gripped in crisis Only preschool education appeals to have escaped this institutional collapse of selt-confidence, and perhaps that is why Congress remains ready to vote vast sums for it The six articles that follow will understandably stuke many as very partial efforts to grasp the elephant Most ot the animal seems to escape What is truly revealing, though, is that not one of the six authors says simply...

...Or those who know they will go to college in any event, where no one will take attendance'' Further, if the schools were related to work in a closer and more organic way, would it be easier to teach numeracy and literacy, and would it relieve the uncertainty about what schools are supposed to be and do...

...Indeed, it should, as it should for the children and young people in the schools But we have become tar too clever m defending our narrowly defined interests in the schools and society Somehow a new acceptance of risk and freedom is required For if we do come up with some good answers to the question of "What are we trying to teach our children...

...If our hearts bleed for shoe workers and shipbuilders and farmers and all the others who insist on doing what they have always done, behind walls of government protection, should it not bleed for teachers and administrators...

...or "on to the new freedom" (we are all too aware of its ambiguities) David Cohen, who has spent some years analyzing data relating to what leads to success in school, comes to the uncomfortable conclusion that neither curriculum nor methodology seem to matter It is more important, he argues, that schools achieve a humane environment?something they can do—than that they preoccupy themselves with what they apparently cannot do, initiate social change The most skeptical voice in oui symposium, Cohen suggests that children actually learn in their daily contacts with family and peer group and society We must reflect upon this pessimistic answer to "What are we trying to teach our children9" Indeed, perhaps the question should properly read "What can this society, with its conflicts and uncertainties, with its inability to define commonly accepted ends and means, teach its children...

...The relation of schooling to work also raises more immediate and less cosmic questions A recent issue of the Public Into est commented on the new mass truancy—in the large cities it appears one-fifth of the enrolled high-school students do not attend, and perhaps another fifth who attend are not m the classroom Who are these children'' Are they the ones who know they will get decent, skilled jobs anyway and are only waiting until they get out...

...Should schools prepare for work...

...it is hardly likely that old forms, skills and training will serve...

...Or should they restrict themselves to offering the basic elements of literacy and numeracy and introduction to a higher culture...

...What would millions of teachers do if the grade and high schools were quite different from what they are—or if, as Ivan Mich proposes, schools as we know them no longer existed...

...And if our society no longer finds it possible to prescribe for all its young, is it not certain that the educational enterprise will fail9 We may not be so badly off as that—yet Joseph Lelyveld describes a classroom m New York City he studied for a whole year He found an exceptional teacher in an ordinary class But as against so much of the present reform literature, which is focused on the exceptional teacher, he shows us how ordinary teachers might be able to expand our children's awareness of how much they can really learn Barbara Leondar, who has visited a large number of "alternative schools," describes the different ways they work While hardly the last word on this complex subject, her article conveys these schools' variety, their strains, the areas where they seem most, and least, successful m stimulating individualism Detailing the failure of what used to be called "civics," Oscar Handlrn asks if anv common education m citizenship is possible What shall we do, one wonders with George Washington, who owned slaves, with Thomas Jefferson, who may have slept with his, with Lincoln, who believed Negroes should be kept sepaiate from whites, with all the heroes of American history who killed Indians, or disliked immigrants, or urged expansion...

...To start by making the tasks more valuable, more relevant in themselves, means to start by reforming the society That is rather a more sobermg challenge than reforming the schools, their resistance to change notwithstanding After all, what would 600,000 professors do if Jesse Pitts' kind of education became the norm...

...It is not surprising that so many of those plunged into the consideration of educational problems look to the Eskimo Every early social studies text, it seems, begins with the Eskimo Consider the harsh climate in which he lives Consider how ingeniously he is adapted to it, with his ice house, his clothes of walrus skin and seal gut, his needles of animal bone, his skill m fishing and hunting and storing food And consider how suitably he educates his children, who will learn to make ice houses, animal skin clothes, bone weapons, how to fish and hunt Here education, work, and life are one It is inevitable that these images should charm and bemuse us Alas, one reads that even the Eskimo children are now collected from their distant encampments and educated in modern, residential, heated schools If that unique culture were not already dissolving for many reasons, it would dissolve because this unsettling experience seems to make living on the ice impossible Yet is it really impossible to develop a better fit between formal education and the tasks that education should prepare for...

...back to the old verities" (are there verities any more...

...Conversely, if work can save the schools, is it possible the schools can save work9 In the factories and in the offices one hears of increasing discontent with work, with a lifetime career, and there the dream is often—return to school Can school and work both be saved if they are more subtly interlaced, along the lines Trow and Pitts propose'' Can this interlacing be extended to the secondary schools...

...What would the people who build and maintain and work in colleges do if higher education—which has in fact become the chief educational goal—were to become deuniver-salized...

...Or are they the ones who know they will not get the jobs whether they attend or not...

...At present, the schools seem incapable of communicating with any vigor, passion or confidence what it means to be an American The country, its history, its shaping forces, its present reality, its role in the world, leave the reformers of education at best tongue-tied and at worst apoplectic Cautiously and modestly, Handlrn indicates how we might begin to restore the sense of a common fate Surely, m view of the powerful voices insisting that radically different fates divide us, this is a necessary task...

...as it is tor colleges ONE ISSUE—while occasionally averted to—is unfortunately largely absent m this collection of articles, and it is possibly the most important What is the relationship between our system of education and work...

...Do schools prepare students for honest and satisfying occupations9 Or do they simply pass out credentials that certify a student has sat patiently for 12 or 16 years, and thus in effect provide docile employes for honest—or dishonest —tasks...

...And if the schools achieve nothing else, isn't this ability a necessity in a complex world, where we would not wish to tolerate personality and spontaneity and subjectivity in those who make automobiles, handle the levers m the power house, or sit near the button...

...Could schools prepare for work9 If, as Cohen declares, they seem unable to do what they are set up to do, why should they be expected to do more than give out credentials that testify to ex-student X's or Y's ability to read directions and follow orders...