This message was made clear to me last year. I had the opportunity to teach a small unit about music as literature. Their Future - Our Past. The mandate for educators is to do the common thing uncommonly well, but to also do the uncommon thing - uncommonly well. Educators throughout the nation accept the challenges - to move forward to basics.
Schools can be both simply complex and complexly simple.
They're as simple as understanding the importance of substantive conversation between adults and children and children and other children. They're as complex as a series of systems - political, social, technical and intellectual. Will Rogers once noted, even if you're on the right track - you'll get run over if you just sit there. Such is the case for education. Choices and options are essential in order to achieve an educational renaissance for the next century.