I am unsure as to whether or not I agree with the overarching theme of this article. In the summary, it says that one of President Obama’s goals is to increase the number of people going to college. Half of me wholeheartedly agrees with this mentality, but then the other half is left wondering, “is that the only use for schools?” It might be the idealist in me, but I think that schools should be used for learning for personal satisfaction and wellness and not only for, “economic growth and prosperity.” The main goal of learning should not be to create a new generation of people who can take care of the country as we grow older, but rather to create a generation that seeks out knowledge and learning which, in turn, will more than likely bring about a generation with new, great ideas. As teachers, I think we need to teach children to, “learn to think,” much like St. Edward’s has been teaching us in the years we have been in college.

The question then is, how do we manage this idea with standards? The article points out ways we can, “redesign structures and processes for effectiveness, efficiency, and flexibility,” and it cites that technology will help with that. I think this whole idea of including technology into the classroom is extremely beneficial to managing the idea of promoting thinking, while still meeting standards. It allows for more personalized lessons and give students an opportunity to see materials taught in a way that might make more sense to them. Since technology is becoming more and more readily available, it also offers students techniques for learning through technology either on their home computer or at a local library. Ultimately, technology creates a better classroom for both teacher and student, and will hopefully help to make it easier for us as future teachers to teach for the students, rather than for the test.