Educating for the future

In his homage to Henry Adams’ book, The Education of Henry Adams, penned 100 years ago, Furman education professor Scott Henderson draws parallels to South Carolina’s education mission as outlined in the “Profile of a South Carolina Graduate.” One of the tenets of South Carolina’s vision is “critical thinking and problem solving,” a skill set which stands in sharp contrast to the teaching practice Adams observed firsthand in Germany where he complained about the “arbitrary training of the memory.” Said Henderson, who wrote an opinion piece for The Greenville News, “We would do well to keep Adams’s critique in mind. The relentless drumbeat of raising standardized test scores threatens to replace analytical skills with what Adams called the “pitiable torture” of memorization. Schools should produce problem solvers, not parrots.”

The “Profile of a South Carolina Graduate” is sanctioned by the South Carolina Association of School Administrators (SCASA) Superintendent’s Roundtable and  the SC Chamber of Commerce.