The weather of the past few days has certainly indicated that winter has arrived. Between the bitter cold and snow squalls, we’re all living the old New England adage that if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute as it will most certainly change.
We’re also facing significant changes in the state and national governments with a new Governor in Massachusetts and Republican control of both the House and Senate in Washington. Despite these changes, our problems remain and we’ll have to wait and see if new leadership brings improvements in how state and federal governments deal with these ongoing issues.
From budgeting (the new ‘predicted’ shortfall in the Massachusetts budget is now at a billion dollars and the federal government hasn’t had a balanced budget in years) to mandated activities across the board; and from educational priorities (now we’re beginning to see a move away from the overuse of standardized testing and getting the federal government out of the local control of education) to the very basic decisions around the disparity between the 1% and the rest of the country, there are a plethora of activities that could be impacted by these political changes.
Of course positive change can only occur when people of both sides of divisive issues take the opportunity to discuss their differences without rancor, can agree on some basic factual items, and are willing to compromise to some degree to ensure that the majority of the people they represent have the opportunity to gain some positive benefits from any solution (as well as realizing that sometimes the solution has to change over time based upon ongoing results of the implementation of policy). We know, from personal experience in our local towns, that sitting down and discussing controversial issues in a positive and collaborative manner can be very difficult, stressful, and often ends up not with compromise but rather battles to be won in the court of public opinion or even just in court.
I certainly don’t have any easy solutions to the conditions we find ourselves in when dealing with difficult problems but I am aware that the fact that so many people follow specific newsfeeds, do most of their ‘fact-finding’ on social media, and often don’t take the time to discuss things personally on a face-to-face basis is making it even more difficult to reach any kind of a reasonable consensus. I believe this makes the movement to support the acquisition of 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication, and problem solving) in schools even more important. Hopefully, at least this aspect of educating the ‘whole child’ will gain some support as we potentially move away from a simplistic testing regimen that does little to measure how well students are prepared for the real world.
