Education is an amazing march towards the future now happening at the speed of an NFL blitz.  The entering class of 2013 will probably graduate around 2025. Preparing children for this period of time seems like more than a daunting task.  We have the Maine Learning Results and now the Common Core to implement, all valued, well-written documents of what we think is important for children to know before they begin the rapid steps towards retirement.

But, let’s look at this upcoming period in a different light. For the moment, let’s think about the entering class of 1913.  Most of these children probably graduated around 1925. The Kindergarten class of 1913 came in a year after the sinking of the Titanic. Woodrow Wilson was president, and the class would live to endure World War I, World War II, and the Korean and the Vietnam war.  Women were not allowed to vote, black children attended segregated classes and the first airline was just about to start. Cigarettes were considered health food; the average family income was not quite $900; and the 12 percent of all kids graduated from high school. They watched a president get killed on their television sets and witnessed a man landing on the moon; yet, this class is largely regarded as the major economic engine this country has ever known and these kids were heralded by Tom Brokaw as the Greatest Generation.

Though we can’t be sure if the curriculum was all that essential or pivotal to the future success of this generation, we do know that some attributes and values were persistent during this time.  They valued kindness, hard work, honesty, how to cooperate with others, creativity, personal responsibility, giving back to the community, patience, family, children-first, and the core belief that they could do anything if they wanted it badly enough.  These attributes are neither valued nor assessed under NCLB testing, yet they continue to be the bedrock for our country.

As we welcome the little ones this fall, the children who will graduate in 2025 and retire in the last quarter of this century, we face a daunting task to prepare them for a world many of us will never see. To even predict what can possibly face them as challenges would read like a sci-fi novel.  Societal, medical, political and cultural changes are occurring exponentially and what we once taught would have no utility going forward. When I observe some teachers I wonder if they get it, because they look very much like the teachers I had in l952.  I guess there is some content knowledge kids need to know and will be universally solid forever, such as math facts, how to read, how to write a cogent sentence, some historical facts and the law of gravity.  Yet, more than a box of knowledge, kids will need to know how to get knowledge, and how to apply it to problems not yet encountered.

More than knowing facts, formulas, historical timelines, and parts of speech, I would like to see a Common Core that addresses niceness, tolerance, peace, joy, how to have fun, taking personal responsibility, giving more than you get, how to raise a happy child, building community and leaving this world a bit better than you found it.  It starts in the home, is modeled and reinforced daily in the classroom and all other places children observe our behaviors.  How we conduct ourselves as adults, parents, teachers and neighbors is the ultimate curriculum for our society and sorely in need of review.

William Shuttleworth just started his 43^rd year as an educator and is the superintendent of four school systems, but more importantly the father of three children. He can be reached at wshuttleworth@hotmail.com