21st Century Priorities—What and How We Teach
Carole Hayward

Mike Schmoker caught many in the crowd assembled at the Closing General Session off guard with his presentation, "21st Century Education: What It Is, How to Ensure It." In a sharp contrast to Paige Johnson's "Opening General Session" and Heidi Hayes Jacobs's "Curriculum 21" session, Schmoker stated right up front that the priorities ("Back to the Future: First Things FIRST for the 21st Century") should be what we teach and how we teach. "The simplicity of this approach could have a profound impact on providing a rich education, not for some, but for all students," he said.

By Martin Haberman

Recognizing the formidable difficulty of institutionalizing new forms of pedagogy for the children of poverty, Mr. Haberman nonetheless believes that it is worthwhile to define and describe such alternatives.

Why is a "minor" issue like improving the quality of urban teaching generally overlooked by the popular reform and restructuring strategies? There are several possibilities. First, we assume that we know what teaching is, that others know what it is, that we are discussing the same "thing" when we use the word, and that we would all know good teaching if we saw it. Second, we believe that, since most teachers cannot be changed anyway, there must be other, more potent, teacher-proof strategies for change. Third, why bother with teaching if research shows that achievement test scores of poor and minority youngsters are affected primarily by their socioeconomic class; affected somewhat by Head Start, school integration, and having a "strong" principal; and affected almost not at all by the quality of their teachers?