239: What is the Purpose of School?

How Would You Prepare Today's Youth to Lead?

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Guest

Rhonda Broussard is an author, entrepreneur, and futurist. One Good Question: How Countries Prepare Youth to Lead is her first book. Broussard is an award-winning education entrepreneur and sought-after public speaker. She is the founder and CEO of Beloved Community, a national nonprofit committed to sustainable economic equity in schools, the workforce, and housing. She is a 28-year educator and researcher who founded and led a network of language immersion and international schools in the US. Broussard studied education in Cameroon, Martinique, metropolitan France, Finland, and New Zealand. Her essays have been featured in The Future of University, North American Edition; Building Bridges, One Leader at a Time; This I Believe, Personal Essays by the Women and Men of Eisenhower Fellowships; IB World magazine, and Forbes Magazine.

Summary

In this episode, Rhonda Broussard and I discuss various reasons for our K-12 system of schooling. Is it to prepare students for a career, acquire knowledge and skills, or develop creative thinking and problem solver abilities? And what about student agency? How much voice and choice should be extended to students to determine what and how they want to learn?

Key Discussions

√ How allowing educators more time to wonder will pay dividends in terms of improved instruction.

√ Why there is an inherent tension between giving educators time to wonder and the urgency to reform.

√ What the role(s) of schooling is.

√ How the world of work and the expectations of a career have changed over time.

√ How we can, on the one hand, respect and believe in greater student agency while reducing our tendency to limit it because it means a loss of our traditional authority.

√ How global educators are grappling with the same question and coming up with different answers.

Links / References

For more information, visit rhondabroussard.com.

IG: @RhondaBroussard_Author

Twitter: @BroussardRhonda

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Show Credits

"Getting Unstuck" is commercial-free. It’s brought to you by Jeff Ikler, his amazing guests, and Neil Hughes, the best engineer a podcaster could ask for.

"Getting Unstuck" theme music: Original composition of "Allegro ben ritmato e deciso" by George Gershwin. Arrangement and recording courtesy of Bruno Lecoeur.

rhondabroussard.com.

IG: @RhondaBroussard_Author

Twitter: @BroussardRhonda

Jeff Ikler