From curriculum to practice: Removing structural and cultural obstacles to effective secondary education reform in the Americas

Abstract

Few would question the growing importance of secondary education in the contemporary outlook. Now more than ever, amidst globalization, youth require sophisticated and engaging pedagogies that will enable them to navigate the social, moral, and technological complexity of the modern world, and to recapture a sense of excitement, purpose, and wonder in learning. Ideally, schools can provide youth with the tools to navigate this new landscape. Yet sadly, schools and school systems in our region still reflect the bureaucratic, state-building imperatives of an older age. With all too few exceptions, and often in spite of their own best efforts, schools attempt to instill standardized knowledge through authoritarian means.