Standards-Based Education = Fast Food

Industrialized education is like a McDonalds joint;

both involve standardization. There's no food for thought, you can leave your inquisitive mind at the door. Challenging the system is outlawed; what they require instead is complaint pupils or staff.

All McDonalds joints smell and look the same, and their food tastes the same too. It tastes of plastic. In a standards-based school there's no room for curriculum growth and development, the same text books have been churned out on conveyor belts for decades.

The fast food joint is designed to maximize profits, the standards-based school is designed to maximize test scores.

Do we need more of this, considering our current economic and environmental climate? I would argue there has to be a shift, in education to project-based learning with more emphasis on creativity, resilience, motivation, passion and enthusiasm - things which cannot be measured or scored against.

In food systems there's got to be a re-localization and simplification of how we produce and consume food. Not only that but there's got to be more community involvement in redesigning a system which nourishes mind, body and soul.

Do we want more of the same; fast, mind-numbing and replaceable? Or do we want something more real; slow, nourishing, ecologically conscious and relationship enhancing?