Beyond Academics

By Deborah Meier

When we talk about reforming schools, the goal is not choice, school-site autonomy, more resources, or more authentic forms of assessment. The goal is educating, and that means knowing what we're educating for. Purposes must be decided upon. As long as we avoid defining "why,'' our educational talk rings hollow. Even on the most practical level, until the kids know the destination, getting there will be hard. And there's no way they can know if their parents and their teachers don't know. Too often we don't.

It's not enough to keep saying our goal is "academic excellence,'' as though that means something sufficiently neutral and obvious to everyone. It doesn't. At a time when we're proposing major change, confusion over terminology is more distracting and troublesome than it is in ordinary times. We need to replace the word "academic'' with new words for what we're after--with language that carries a different set of connotations.

"Academic'' is just a word, friends tell me. Why get so hung up on it? But "just a word'' can cause a lot of damage. "Academic'' has various specialized and very loaded meanings, also slippery ones. It is, first of all, ubiquitous, and it sends subliminal messages, often unintended. Art and music, for example, are not "academic'' unless we sever their connection from performance--from doing. Then we can have what's now called "academic art.'' But why is "doing'' nonacademic? And why is art worthier of school time when it's academic than when it's not? And why is science at least four times more important than even academic art? I once figured out that there are more jobs in New York City for people with advanced musical or artistic skills than for those with advanced calculus. But, see! I've fallen into the trap of assuming school is vocational. OK, which do more citizens get pleasure from? Which leads them into improved habits of citizenship? I'd be hard put to claim calculus the winner over art or music on any such...