Preparing Innovative Change Agents for Justice
Before I go further, I want to emphasize that I believe that school is not just about preparing students for the future. It's about helping them manage their now. I think we often get so caught up in a focus on the future that we do damage to the now, but that's for another blog post.
When we do think about the future of students, which is often, we talk in terms of creating equal educational outcomes that will prepare them for participation in the economy.
"How can we ensure they'll be able to compete in the real world?"
"What skills and knowledge do they need to have options when they go looking for jobs?"
Now, I acknowledge there is a shred of legitimacy to these discussions. But I find them to be extraordinarily problematic, mostly because the presume the purpose of an education for an individual is, ultimately, to make money. And that notion is based on the even more problematic notion that the larger purpose for education systems is primarily to create a highly-competitive economy.
But even if we do accept participation in the economy as the highest aim of public education, what's so clear is that the way we talk about preparing students for their futures is wrapped in language An Urban Teacher's Education: Preparing Innovative Change Agents for Justice: