A Bridge To Nowhere

In New Zealand, there is a tourist attraction called The Bridge to Nowhere. In lies within Whanganui National Park on the south island. Back in the early parts of the 1900's, white New Zealanders, flush with notions of progress and technological might, built the bridge across the Whanganui river in anticipation that human development and taming of the wilderness would follow. It was sort of the first version of "build it and they will come." Well, they never came. The bridge still exists, a bizarre architectural oddity in the middle of a national park. It is also, of course, a symbol of the folly of human short-sightedness and our ability to create do things before, as Rachel Carson once wrote, thinking about whether we *should* do things.

In many ways, I see No Child Left Behind as a "bridge to nowhere." All of us agree that our children ought to "achieve" and that a challenging, enriching, and engaging curriculum is a huge part of that. But the real question is, what kind of achievement? Certainly, the bridge to nowhere in New Zealand was an "achievement." But is it the kind of achievement we want? In looking at the many challenges before us as we look forward into the 21st century, it seems clear that the kind of achievement we are foisting upon our schools is a bridge to nowhere. It neither connects us meaningfully to our past nor does it enable us to consider a more hopeful future.

What might we do otherwise? As I have stated before on this blog, I would like to advocate for a No Planet Left behind educational intitiative. I see at least two significant issues that ought to focus our attention to a new kind of bridge:

1. The emerging challenge of global climate change
2. The rapid amplification of globalization

Both of these connect to issues of equality, global pluralism and multiculturalism, and the need for a re-imagination of notions of citizenship, knowledge, and social justice. This is not just a leftist project. The growth of the economies in India and China are a stark reminder that we, as Americans, will not be able to control our destiny much longer if we continue on our present path. Schools (and our government) are lagging behind curriculum innovation that meets these challenges.

Training everyone up to be the best achieving capitalist they can be is simply unsustainable. It is a race to the bottom. It is building a bridge to nowhere.