Page 78 - The Drucker Lectures

What We Already Know about American Education Tomorrow [ 59

part, a crucial part, of “learning” rather than an isolated, super-
imposed mechanism for “education.” And “learning” is lifelong
rather than the special limbo for those too old to “play” and too
young to “work.”
No one can foretell what will happen in the schools this year
or next. But we already know reasonably well where we will come
out—or at least where we should come out. Seven goals, seven
destination points, seven fundamentals of American education
tomorrow can already be discerned.

1. Tomorrow’s school will be based on the principle of “no re-
jects.” It will be based on the firm assumption that the school
can guarantee that every child will reach a minimum—and
a high minimum—of accomplishment in the fundamental
skills. We no longer can permit ourselves to talk of “dumb” or
“lazy” children. In the first place, there is too much at stake
to accept that alibi. Secondly, we now know that’s all it is, an
alibi. It is simply not true. All the evidence we have indicates
that even the least well-endowed normal child has more than
enough capacity for the acquisition of basic skills.
2. Learning tomorrow, from preschool on to the most advanced
adult continuing education, will utilize and put to work the
individual’s own rhythm, his own learning speed, his own
pattern. Traditionally, we had no choice. With 30 or 50 chil-
dren in the classroom, the teacher had to impose on all of
them the same pattern. The lockstep of education was a ne-
cessity. This is no longer true. I am not talking of computer-
assisted instruction. I do not believe that the task necessarily
requires huge machines and a tremendous amount of new
technology. But it certainly requires a great deal more by
way of tools than we have ever had before. The elementary
school and the high school are grossly undercapitalized. We
have relied on labor. And that, in turn, has meant that the