How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century

SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR

Posted Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006
There's a dark little joke exchanged by educators with a dissident streak: Rip Van Winkle awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year snooze and is, of course, utterly bewildered by what he sees. Men and women dash about, talking to small metal devices pinned to their ears. Young people sit at home on sofas, moving miniature athletes around on electronic screens. Older folk defy death and disability with metronomes in their chests and with hips made of metal and plastic. Airports, hospitals, shopping malls--every place Rip goes just baffles him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old...

• Related Items: Click here for related stories from TIME and relevant blog posts from around the web.

Cover Package: How To Build a Student For the 21st Century

• Cover Story: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century The world has changed, but the American classroom, for the most part, hasn't. Now educators are starting to look at what must be done to make sure our kids make the grade in the new global economy

CNN.com

• Pinochet death greeted with jubilation and tears
• Discovery crew checks for launch damage
• Iraq president rejects Baker-Hamilton report
• 'Banker to poor' receives Nobel Peace Prize
• Johnson falls out of golf cart, breaks wrist