JMG3Y,

All that you point to is based on a premise I actually reject. That is that we 'teach' anything at all. People are natural learners and starting at a young age are explorers eager to understand their world. They don't start out in grade school thinking "I have to learn computer science so I can get a good job." You see I am railing against the very basis for the modern school system. Namely that we are supposed to teach disciplinary knowledge. The best practices approach to what are good teaching methods, etc. is still based on the premise that we need to produce students in the name of economic progress. Good teachers are as much defined by buying into that premise as by the results they get.

When I teach computer science I am indeed part of the problem. I signed a contract to teach the discipline as best I can. I do, however, rebel against the standard approach to teaching. Almost everything in the curriculum I 'guide' students through is now based on discovery of principles and application in projects. Come into one of my lectures and your as likely to find me at the back of the room with a number of students in the front acting out the roles of different parts of an operating system managing other students representing processes. They work in groups and have to write scripts for a play that is intended to show younger students how an OS works. In other words I try to turn them into teachers (of the guide type) as they learn how an OS works.

I also pre-warn my students each quarter that if they are married to the process of figuring out what I want so they can pass a test then they are likely to NOT like my classes (lets face it, they have been trained in this regimen for their entire lives so not a few of them prefer it - which is why some professors get good student evals because they play by the rules students have come to know and love!) I don't lecture so much as ask questions that force students to think and synthesize. I ask a lot of open ended questions that many students are uncomfortable with, at least initially. They just want to know the 'right' answer so they can regurgitate it later.

Even so, my CS classes are more like ordinary school than I like. I still have to play the role of power teacher. And I have to push them through subjects we claim they will need to know whether they like the subject or not. Though I will say I think I have more success getting students really interested in OS or architecture than many others.

Contrasted with that, my Global Honors classes are totally different. Since we are not there to go deep into a discipline, rather we are trying to integrate across several disciplines. I bring some core connection (systems science) guidelines but the students bring their various understandings and we, as a group, explore various topics - like education. I try to help them see obscured connections, e.g. between peak oil and climate change adaptation (where will the energy come from to do the work). What happens in these classes is that students bring questions after doing some individual and group investigations and what 'lecturing' I do is just trying to point them in the direction of finding answers via the systems approach.

Uniformly the students come out of those classes feeling like they've just discovered a whole new way to look at the world. We have two graduating classes now, and most of the students are going on to work in environmental areas, or education in underdeveloped countries. When they finish they relate to me as a helper or facilitator, but not someone who decides what they should know. (I should say I get by with this because systems science is a pretty good framework for learning new things, but it is also a natural way to look at things once it is made explicit in their minds, which is my job.)

I don't see ABET (especially) or any accrediting body wanting input of the kind I would offer! They are dedicated to the standard model but just want to act as a quality assurance process. I am advocating an entirely different purpose for education.

But what I am doing to start toward fixing the problem is, with colleagues, designing a new major in Systems Science. A BA in SS will formulate a qualitative basis for getting students to think systemically (we call it the 21st Century form of critical thinking). A BS will provide a quantitative basis for tackling real systems problems. Some of the basis and justifications for this approach can be found in a series of four articles here, here, here, and here.

Ultimately my feeling is that we need to re-envision the purpose of education, especially K-12, but also baccalaureate-level, as development of the person's understanding of their world - all parts of it. It doesn't mean they are going to become experts on everything there is. They will become effective generalists, better positioned to learn any specific knowledge they would need to become disciplinarian. But they would be in charge of their own education at an earlier stage in life. See "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald M. Weinberg, pp 43-47 for a discussion of the advantage of becoming a generalist first. Essentially, someone armed with this kind of education can easily become deeply disciplinary in just about any knowledge-based field they would like to pursue.

This probably isn't what you expected based on my reading of your comment. But I did try to answer all of your concerns.

Regards
George