Re-Thinking the Education System

Nick Hylla

Wisconsin Forest Resources Education Alliance

TPA 2/07

Everyone has an opinion about the education system. This is true because we all have some experience with it. Even if you were home-schooled and you home-school your children, you pay taxes to support local schools (as well as state and federal education programs). In this sense, we all have a right to an opinion.

It is my experience that most opinions come as answers to one of the following questions:

• What should the goal of education be?
• Who should determine what children learn?
• And, how should education be funded?

In the past few years, I have heard and read opinions about the education system that have inspired, surprised, intrigued, angered, confused, and even humored me. Yet, the public dialogue often makes me wonder if most of us truly understand what the education system is.

It is surely necessary, that to have an informed opinion, we must first understand what the education system is. We tend to discuss education as if it were a bubble confined within school walls and limited to five, seven-hour days each week. Yet, to identify the biggest influences on how our children grow to understand the world, we need to look at how our families, communities, governments and media shape our perception of the world – that is to say, how they create the mental models that we use to make sense of things.

A mental model is a representation in a person’s mind of a real or imaginary situation. Mental models influence the way that we perceive the world, make decisions, and ultimately behave. It can be said that cognitive science helped us understand mental models and marketing firms and political organizations helped us perfect their use in shaping society. History reveals that great influence can be gained by understanding, creating, and reinforcing mental models in the general public.

Mental models are often most easily visible by listening to the language used in the national political dialogue. One modern and easily understandable example would be the use of the phrase ‘tax relief.’ By referring to decreases in taxes as a form of relief, we reinforce the mental model that taxes are a burden that each of us has to bear. And, we neglect the mental model that taxes pay for infrastructure, libraries, police, schools, etc. An indication that one mental model has successfully replaced another is when even the opposition adopts the terminology.

A mental model relevant to the forest industry can easily describe why FSC not SFI certified lumber enjoys widespread acceptance by America’s corporate retail giants. The calculation by their marketing department is easy to make, since they understand a few mental models widely held by the general public.

· Mental Model #1 = Corporate Greed (i.e. A corporation’s job is to make money. The more trees the timber industry cuts, the more money they make for their corporate owners. The timber industry by its nature will cut as many trees as possible.)

· Mental Model #2 = Destructive Logging (i.e., Cutting too many trees destroys forests. If a harvest looks bad, it is bad.)

By understanding these simple mental models, marketing agencies, whose goal is to increase corporate market share, will embrace a certification system that the public sees as outside of the timber industry.

Research in the fields of cognitive science and systems thinking suggests that the mental models created in children by their social surrounding play a central role in how they understand scientific principles and their relationship to the real world. It is then obvious that a very powerful force in our education system is the society in which we live.

Why then do we blame the school system for problems in the way our children learn?

Understanding how society influences a child’s education is only the first hurdle to answering the question, “What should be the goal of education?” Before you read any further, I ask that you take out a pencil and answer the following 10 questions to help define what you believe the goal should be.

The education system should:

1. teach acceptance of the way things are? (Y/N)
2. challenge the way things are? (Y/N)
3. use competition as the primary motivation for learning? (Y/N)
4. use cooperation as the primary motivation for learning? (Y/N)
5. deal with social problems and issues? (Y/N)
6. instill values in students? (Y/N)
7. be free from the influence of special interest groups? (Y/N)
8. focus primarily on local needs? (Y/N)
9. focus primarily on global needs? (Y/N)
10. focus primarily on the needs of the student? (Y/N)

Over the coming year, WFREA’s TPA column will focus on the education system and our role in it. We’ll write about the difference between education and propaganda. We’ll make the case for education as the primary solution for some of the biggest challenges to Wisconsin forests and forestry. We’ll describe what an authentic learning experience feels like. We’ll talk about the importance of ‘a sense of place’ in education. And, we’ll present education strategies that help create lifetime learners.

In the end, it is my hope that we’ll be better able to answer the question “What is the role of the forestry community in the education system?” When we arrive at a common understanding of the answer, then we can begin to get serious about a collaborative, comprehensive, and sustained commitment to education.

For questions, comments, or suggestions contact Nick Hylla at nick@wfrea.org or 715-295-0458.