In chapter one of Rethinking High School, the authors highlight how schools seem to be grossly out of sync with the times (20). This point resonates with me because most high schools are designed to follow a traditional model, despite how ineffective that system is in contemporary education. Rather than dismantle and recreate, officials seem to incorporate adjunct frameworks like NCLB in an attempt to alleviate the problems in education, but instead, end up aggravating the system more. Furthermore, the authors assert that “schools are designed to be conservative institutions,” (20)—an idea which has sparked my interest and which I want to investigate further. Since schools are intended to prepare students for ‘real-world’ situations, educating them using outmoded, traditionalist approaches seems detrimental to the future of youths across America, who no longer live in outdated era and need to be taught the necessary skills to help them succeed in a progressive future.
Many of the Second to None ‘components of reform’ relate to the concepts illustrated in chapter one, especially Second to None’s component of ‘creating curricular paths to success.’ Both Second to None and Best Practices High School accentuate a rigorous curriculum that promotes intellectual development. It seems that the future of education lies in integrated curriculum that promote higher-order thinking and that progressive schools, like Best Practices, are largely focusing on concepts rather than isolated facts. With the uncertainty of the future of our nation and mainly the economy, we, as educators, must ensure that we teach our students how to be thinkers, observers, and advocates so that they will be ready to solve the problems that they will face in future.
