204 Teaching Minds

204 Teaching Minds Universities will not change until some equally prestigious online university is developed that challenges their ability to attract students. As long as students show up at Yale, and there is no danger there in the foreseeable future, Yale does not have to change. But Yale must understand what it is doing to the high school sys- tem. It has to stop telling the high schools what to teach. It has to stop talking about how high schools must prepare students for college. That should not be its job. Yale has to accept the idea that students will arrive at Yale “unprepared” for college. Making Yale’s admissions process easier should not be the job of the high schools. Teaching the subjects that superstars don’t want to teach should not be the job of the high schools. High schools need to focus on the concerns and is- sues of real students living in the real world. If Yale really believes in algebra for its students, then it can teach algebra to all entering fresh- men. (Believe me, it never will.) Until subjects cease to be the basis of the structure of universities, there will be a big problem in education across the planet because ev- eryone everywhere assumes that university degrees are important. As long as we assume this, and as long as we accept that what is taught in high school will be determined by the universities, we are in serious trouble. High schools have become college preparation centers and thus no one learns anything but academic subjects in high school. Cognitive processes must be the meat of high schools and should be the basis of college as well. The top-tier colleges will not change and maybe they shouldn’t. They can continue to be research universities and specialize in producing the next generation of Nobel physicists or literary scholars. Great scientists are nice and I am all for producing them. But the 3,000 colleges in the United States are not all producing great physicists. Still they teach chemistry and require mathematics for no reason that anyone can remember. If we don’t start thinking seriously about how to teach thinking, as opposed to academic subjects, to the 99% of students who have no intention of becoming scholars, we will all lose. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023950