This discussion takes me back

This discussion takes me back to my "real" teacher training that happened in graduate school. Two books and several people are brought to my mind. The books are "Reclaiming the Classroom" (Goswami & Stillman) and "The Universal Schoolhouse" (James Moffett). If the discussion on education is really going to turn into the discussion of learning these books should be standard reading - in my opinion. Moffett, Janet Emig, James Britton, Nancy Martin, and a host of others are the philosophical idealogical foundation of articulating learning as a process not a skill. That shift in understanding makes all the difference. But it's not the mainstream of educational thinking.
Conducting education in the 21st century as if its the 1950's is nonsense. Where I grew up there was a GM assembly plant, the headquarters and main factory of Parker Pen, a large window treatment products factory called Hough Shade, and a gaggle of suppliers and transporters to service these industries. For my generation it was assumed after high school you went to work at GM, or Parker, or Hough Shade, or one of the subsidiaries. A hand full of "smart kids" went to college and a handful of them became doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Once in awhile a "jock" got chance at the pros. None of those industries exist in my hometown today. On top of that pension plans, retirement agreements and early buy-outs that were contract settlements 30 or 40 years ago have disappeared sometimes partially and often completely unfulfilled. So not one generation but three or four had their world and their lives evaporate in an instant. Their education did not prepare them for that. It was inconceivable!
Experience made it conceivable.
With challenges like educating our kindergarteners for jobs that don't yet exist, it makes education for employment a nonsensical goal. Instead the discussion of education (schooling) should be "learning how to learn". What do we do to make that happen?
I love the concept of Project Based Learning. But I also come from a history of teaching experience that would not allow that idea to live. I'm more than skeptical I'm cynical. Mainstream education is designed by and controlled by economics and politics, Definitely not by educators. NCLB and Race to the Top are examples of that. Milton Chen is absolutely right and his 6 edges of education are also right.
I'd like to talk to him about how those ideas become mainstream. How do we overcome 400 years of tradition of doing something the same way? Will technology finally destroy that tradition and if it does what will fill the vacuum?
Technology and politics destroyed the GM assembly plant, Parker Pen, and Hough Shade. The vacuum was filled with poverty, violence and crime.
Project Based Learning would be a good thing to fill the void. Faced with the weight of tradition, the power of economics and the blindness of politics, can PBL become mainstream?
I'm more than just asking. I think educators must take back education!