Reform or Remake?
Kjell Fenn, 17 June 2015
I recall an old house I saw in a photograph. The dilapidated front porch was flanked by shutters falling
and paint peeling. The house leaned to the right and the roof was caving in. The foundation was
cracked. All in all, the house was a complete mess, although at its creation, it was a beautiful and
functional dwelling. This is the state of our education system today. The same beams and framing
served a powerful purpose of yesteryear, but now, it’s a dangerous mess. Adding a new garage will not
help. Blowing out the kitchen wall to build an extra large dining area with all the modern accoutrements
is not going to add real value to the home. Lifting the roof to construct an extra floor for more
bedrooms and another bathroom will not make the house salable. This is what we are doing with our
education system: building onto a broken system.
To reform means to reshape; to use existing material to form a new or better thing. Think about the all
the great ideas and innovations recently: supersizing the amount of tech in the classrooms, painting the
walls so that they are huge white boards, making school-wide wifi available to all, flipping classrooms,
removing homework, not grading, and the list goes on. All of those excellent innovations are adding to a
broken and dilapidated system – and it will continue to deteriorate.
The answer, I believe, is to remake, not reform, the education system. Start from scratch. Charter
schools, while beginning to go in this direction, are still modeling themselves after the traditional system
– they just add a few powerful innovations. I’m reminded of Johann Pestalozzi who, in 1800, started a
new kind of school in Burgdorf, Switzerland. Pestalozzi knew that the current system was not reaching
all kids, especially the poor. So, with a plan and an opportunity, Pestalozzi combined industry and
education, and in 8 months he taught his 5- and 6-year students to read, write, and do math. His legacy
still lives on. Why? Not because he reformed the existing system, but he made a new one.
What we need are more remakers, not reformers (no offense – for I, too, wore a self-label of reformer).
While the term ‘remaker’ may seem tautological, it carries the idea that the existing thing is not all bad
in its essence, but that it requires more than reforming. The essence of education – transmitting
knowledge from one generation to another to build a participatory citizenry – is valid and powerful. The
methods in achieving that lofty goal is what demands remaking. New building materials need to be
used, original tools need to be forged, innovative methods need to be employed. All of this ‘newness’
cannot be done within the context reforming. The philosophical premise that the existing can simply be
formed in a new manner, or by adding a new piece, or with a new leadership structure, is eventually
futile. We end up where we are now: frustrated, searching for ways to make it all better.
The house needs to be razed to the ground, a new foundation poured, and a new home constructed.