Our Hopes for This Book

educational transformation is so urgent. Finally, the appendix (page 261) offers a table listing each strategy in part 2.

Our Hopes for This Book

We know that we are educating in a time of standardized expectations in education, and we recognize the challenges that climate creates. This book includes our most radical hopes for the future of education, but it is also grounded in and realistic about what it means to use the landscape model while simultaneously fulfilling broad academic expectations and preparing students for standardized exams, particularly those which serve as gatekeepers to higher education and other high-impact opportunities. It would be irresponsible to create an educational model that ignores the very real demands of university entrance, for example. But we also see pedagogical shifts beginning in the best universities around the world, and we believe that something more personalized is possible and desirable across the K–12 and postsecondary spectrum spectrum. Ivy league universities such as Stanford, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were among the first to start using student-centered strategies such as design thinking, while community colleges and trade schools have long been focused on practical skill building with an apprentice system that looks a lot like student protagonism. Even the temporary elimination of Standardized Achievement Tests (SATs) as a requirement for university entrance during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their replacement with more authentic forms of achievement articulation like student portfolios, is a good sign. Around the world, educators are calling for a new normal post-pandemic, not just a return to the factory line, and we hope the landscape model offers a way to envision what that new normal might include.

We wish to recognize the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on education around the world. We have had many discussions about the way COVID has reshaped educational thinking, including the good (educators and students learning to navigate digital learning more nimbly), the bad (a predominant return to teacher-centered, less collaborative approaches in online learning), and the ugly (the exodus of excellent teachers and the increased disenfranchisement of millions of young people unable to participate in deep learning because of the digital, political, and socioeconomic divide). We both fear the “race to catch up” mindset we see emerging among those facing the worst levels of disenfranchisement, the constant mentions of “learning loss” in the news, and we know the pressure this can cause for students and educators. After all, if almost everyone in the world is behind, are any of us really behind?