Unifying Education as Problem Solving

Abstract

Public education in the United States is breaking down on two dimensions: its bureaucratic organization and its conceptualization of the learning process. These breakdowns result from attempts to deliver public education using business models and have failed to support the needs of both students and teachers. This breakdown has been further exacerbated by an old misconception about intelligence based on inherent, immutable aspects of biology. This view medicalizes learning problems, enabling schools to categorize already marginalized students producing a stigmatization that negatively impacts their development. To address these problems it is proposed that public education be reframed as a developmental specialization of problem-solving skills. This reframing would ground the conceptualization of learning in the most natural human learning process: problem-solving. Such an approach could directly support students in addressing problems that undermine their individual performance. This problem-solving-centered approach could form both a supportive and successful core educational routine that would model and support stronger collaborative structures between students, teachers, and administrators, building stronger institutions.