What does public school have in common with the publishing industry?

It occurred to me yesterday when I was on a retreat and someone was presenting Howard Gardner's ideas of Multiple Intelligence as a new idea to a group of people that I first learned about it and read about it 30 years ago! Ever since that time there has been lots of talk and effort at reaching students with their preferred mode of learning (linguistic, spacial, kinisthetic, etc...) and seeing them as individuals who can be intelligent in many different ways, some of which don't show much like intrapersonal.

Why has education remained SO much the same? Why are we STILL focusing on the same things and not seeing change?

There are many industries that have disappeared or are on their ways out because of changes in the way things are done because of technology.

• Travel Agents
• Music Publishers
• Book Publishers
• Print Newspapers

Why didn't those people see how much things were changing and instead of trying harder changed WHAT they were doing?

Now apply that to education. What are we doing? Why don't we see that things are changing? We KNOW that standardized tests do not help our students. We KNOW that Art, Music, PE enrich learning rather than taking away from it. We KNOW that the world is changing. Is Public Education headed on the same path as the print newspaper? Is it worth hanging on and trying harder? How do we get a vision of a new way of learning and teaching?