What If Modern Education Philosophy Were Applied to Fashion?
By M. M.
with apologies to Hans Christian Anderson
A famous tale ends with a scene in which a small child, watching the Emperor’s parade, finally blurts out, “Mother, the emperor has no clothes!”
Today, a similar comment could be made about our public education system--“Mother, the schools have no academics!”
We have heard so many explanations for current educational trends. The commentary below adds a new twist. The emperor’s clothing story is set against the backdrop of education rhetoric to point out the lack of logic. (The names of the officials have been altered.)
The previous Superintendent of Public Instruction was a strong proponent of post-modern education philosophy. Fortunately, we have new leadership in the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, but the negative influences from past years are systemic. It will require much time, effort, and insight to weed them out.
All of the comments below have been said, at one time or another, to justify various educational practices. Please consider this commentary when examining new educational trends.
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Upon hearing that a child had exclaimed, “The emperor has no clothes!” a spokesperson from Washington State’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Fashion announced, “Now that we are in the 21st century, we must surely realize that fashion is changing, …. evolving. What we wear this year will be different from what we wear next year. What we learn about dressing today will soon change, so we must focus on the process of dressing and on the Higher Order Dressing Skills so that we can adapt to any type of fashion trend.”
As Assistant Superintendent Sherry McCoy said, “….What is happening in America today, and what is happening in Kansas and the Great Plains, is not simply a chance situation in the usual winds of change. What it amounts to is the total transformation of our society.
…And the issue for most children and the issue for the society is that what is changed in fashion today is that we no longer see the wearing of clothes and as the primary outcome of getting dressed…”[1]
Also, our Superintendent Tricia Berger says we must use research to “shift from the ‘yesterday’ mind to the ‘tomorrow’ mind,” in the way we think of clothes.[2]
Fortunately, the ten Regional Fashion-Education Labs in the USA have provided us with a plethora of studies. The research is based on ecological, sustainable, and multicultural aspects of clothing, rather than the outdated thinking of past generations.
Ecologically speaking, we must realize that with global warming and higher temperatures, we will require a new type of more-breathable fabric for our everyday outfits. The fabric of the Emperor’s new clothes is the prototype of fabric for the future.3
Scarcity is also a concern on this blue planet, and it would be wrong of us to wastefully use material resources to over-dress our population, especially when people in other countries wear much less. Wearing cotton clothing causes people to waste farmland on growing cotton instead of valuable food crops. Wearing wool, silk, or leather causes the abuse or murder of poor animals, and wearing synthetic materials wastes fossil fuels. Following the Emperor’s lead and using his new fabric is the only sensible way to conserve resources and live sustainably.3
There are also multicultural considerations. People in many cultures of the globe are very comfortable being minimally-clad. It would be wrong to force our Euro-centric ideas about being over-clad upon other people. In fact, the indigenous peoples of the Americas and of Africa had ancient knowledge of medicinal herbs and lived in harmony with their habitat. We should learn from and emulate their cultures.4
One sub-culture that needs special attention, however, is the growing group of Home-Dressers. Parents who Home-Dress their children naively believe they can better instill clothing knowledge, behavior, and beliefs into their children, and they strive to take matters of attire into their own hands. Some of them even sew their children’s clothing! Many of them are not educated in the new standards of fashion and cling to their traditional notions. It is hoped that the clothing experts will eventually produce legislation to require that parents be certified in Modern Fashion Methods and Modern Fashion Philosophy before being permitted to Home-Dress their children.
The Emperor’s new fabric choice will be the recommended fabric in the reauthorization of Non-approved Clothing Left Behind. All states must align their dress standards with the NCLB guidelines. NCLB calls for a state assessment to assess the children’s clothing preferences to see if they have achieved the correct higher order dressing skills, with respect to state ecological, sustainability, and multicultural standards.
A spokesperson for the Federal Department of Clothing states that even though determining how US citizens are clothed is not a Federal power under our United States Constitution, it is for the good of the people that clothing choices be codified by the experts in Washington, D.C. Besides, if the Federal Department of Clothing didn’t exist, people would not know how to get dressed.
So while young children may not yet understand the new thinking of the 21st century, teachers and parents will surely agree that any responsible, ecology-respecting, culturally aware, conservation-minded citizen will want world-class clothing standards for the children, and will be able to see the Emperor’s new outfit for the brilliant, farsighted innovation that it is.
[1] Shirley McCune, held the position of Federal Liaison for Teaching and Learning at the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Olympia, WA from around 1997 until 2008. In the late 1980s she was Senior Director of the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory doing research for the U.S. Department of Education.
In 1989, at a National Governors’ Association Conference on education in Kansas, she said,
“….What is happening in America today, and what is happening in Kansas and the Great Plains, is not simply a chance situation in the usual winds of change. What it amounts to is the total transformation of our society.
…And the issue for most children and the issues for the society is that what is changed in education today is that we no longer see the teaching of facts and information as the primary outcome of education.”
[2] “Using Research to Shift From the ‘Yesterday’ Mind to the ‘Tomorrow’ Mind,” was a phrase used to describe mathematics education and is the subtitle to the former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Terry Bergeson‘s publication Teaching and Learning Mathematics, March 2000.
http://www.k12.wa.us/research/pubdocs/pdf/MathBook.pdf . (Also see page 58, for the statement that the math curriculum should not be concerned with correct answers.)
3 Environmental and Sustainability issues are to be emphasized and integrated into other subjects:
http://www.k12.wa.us/curriculumInstruct/EnvironmentSustainability/pubdocs/EESAVisionfortheFuture061807.doc
4 For example, this commentary by the Brookings Institute explains ethnomathematics, http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2005/0620k12education_ravitch.aspx
Welcome
Education used to be about reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Great-grandpa used to learn it all in a one-room schoolhouse with a pot-bellied wood stove.
Today kids sit in multi-million dollar school buildings with the latest computers, high-speed internet connections, multimedia centers...technology that Great-grandpa could never imagine...but are they learning as much as Great-grandpa learned?
No.
Today's high school graduates can't spell, write grammatically, or locate places on a map. Yet we're spending huge amounts of money to educate them.
We're being told the millions of dollars are helping teach "higher order thinking skills" and we're "closing the gaps" between high and low performing groups. Students are improving their self-esteem.
Is this true? Or are we being fooled...bamboozled? We need some anti-bamboozling clarity. Welcome to the Education Anti-Bamboozling Center -- Education ABC.
Today kids sit in multi-million dollar school buildings with the latest computers, high-speed internet connections, multimedia centers...technology that Great-grandpa could never imagine...but are they learning as much as Great-grandpa learned?
No.
Today's high school graduates can't spell, write grammatically, or locate places on a map. Yet we're spending huge amounts of money to educate them.
We're being told the millions of dollars are helping teach "higher order thinking skills" and we're "closing the gaps" between high and low performing groups. Students are improving their self-esteem.
Is this true? Or are we being fooled...bamboozled? We need some anti-bamboozling clarity. Welcome to the Education Anti-Bamboozling Center -- Education ABC.
