The Time Magazine cover story this week is all about the time warp that American public schools are mired in. The article argues that schools need a complete overhaul to allow students to compete in the global marketplace, where skills like fluency in several languages, out of the box thinking, global awareness, and the ability to interpret complex data are all highly valued. But the article argues that those things are not being taught in public schools where the structure of teacher lecturing at the head of the class, students sitting in rows taking notes by hand has remained unchanged for decades. The article interviews Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, among others. It also highlights schools like Seattle’s John Stanford International School where students take some classes in either Japanese or Spanish and whose social studies education includes a more global perspective.
A version of this news article first appeared in the Around the Web blog.