Despite a cloudy, unseasonably cool, unseasonably gray and dreary Michigan Saturday, my family and I joined friends on boats in the bay in front of Selfridge Air Force base to watch their semi-annual air show. We were wowed by the World War II fighter plane acrobatics, the eerie Stealth Bomber, and a variety of sky writers and sky divers. We were most impressed with the power and precision of the Air Force's elite Thunderbirds show - six F-16s flying in precision formations and performing amazing aerial stunts at high speed.
As we watched, it struck me how interesting and amazing it is that there are these kind of parallel universes of knowledge and experience in existence. My son asked me a number of questions about the planes - air speed, size, weaponry - an entire litany of perfectly appropriate questions - none of which I could answer. In the military, and probably in many different worlds, what we don't know could literally hurt us.
This morning as I returned to work, and we continued preparing for next week's registration, and the subsequent start of school for freshmen on Sept. 8th, it's more apparent than ever to me that we can't possibly adequately prepare our students for the world they will inherit as adults. Many of their future careers don't even yet exist, and others are beyond the conceptual grasp of most of us. What we can do, is prepare them to be creative problem solvers.
I didn't know the answers to most of my son's questions Saturday, but I do now, because I have the capability to find information. We went to websites, asked people who knew the answers, and found out about a world that is largely foreign to me. The most important and valuable skill we can provide our students is to give them the tools to gather information and solve problems. The necessity for project based learning that requires skill application is greater than ever.
We're excited about the start of school, and the opportunity and responsibility we have to prepare our students for whatever comes next. The more they know, the safer and more capable they'll be.
By the way, the F-16 can fly at speeds of Mach 2 - just over 1300 miles per hour - and has a range of over 2400 miles...just in case someone asks you...
The Principal's Office is a blog created by Tim Bearden, Chief Academic Officer and Upper School Director at Detroit Country Day School, an independent school in Beverly Hills, MI. While content will sometimes be specific to Country Day, the majority of posts are specific in scope to issues concerning teaching and learning in the 21st century.
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