Schooling for Life – Dr Dale E Shuttleworth

Synopsis

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, schools and communities find themselves struggling with concerns of youth violence, child poverty, and race relations in an economy mired in recession. In Schooling for Life , esteemed community educator Dale E. Shuttleworth brings his rich experiences as a teacher, principal, school superintendant, policy writer, community development worker, social entrepreneur, and university course director to a discussion of public education and its role in the communities that it serves.In an historic overview of how and why public schooling has changed since 1965, Schooling for Life traces a series of demonstration projects which have influenced policy development and innovative practice in such fields as inner city education, multi-cultural and race relations, adult education, economic development, and skill training. This timely work represents a blueprint for community education and development as society faces the challenges of social, economic, and political renewal.

It is my belief that the impending challenge to our civilization will not be how to cope with the future shock of a rapidly developing technology of material abundance but, rather, how to live with less. The pre-eminence of institutional schooling, either as a form of moral suasion to inculcate the masses in the age-old values or as a human assembly line feeding the economy, must give way to the learning needs of individuals struggling to reorient their lifestyles. This reordering of priorities will produce the most profound sense of change our society has experienced since the Great Depression … Our present system of schooling by technician must give way to a new concept of teacher as change agent. This person will continue to stress literacy as a basic life skill, a fundamental on which to build patterns of lifelong learning. However, other basic skills must include cooperative problem solving, social and emotional fulfilment, and the ability to identify, analyse, develop, and use resources as part of a process of learning to cope with continuous change.