Last week, on a flight to Washington, I met a confident businessman who asked me about my profession when sitting himself down comfortably next to me. I told him that I am an educator, and for twelve years I have been trying to develop and promote critical thinking about learning in mainstream education. "Goodness, it must be the most difficult task in the world!" He thought for a moment. "Why do you do this?" I talked about how I had started teaching geography. I told him about the struggles of being a headmaster. And then I told him what I have come to regard as my real turning-point experience. It was back in 1984, when I visited what was known at the time as one of the most outstanding high schools on the Eastern seaboard. After two days there I was totally amazed. I had never met such a fine collection of young people, every one of them apparently confident, enthusiastic, sensitive and well able to manage their futures. I asked the principal how this had been achieved and he smiled. "We believe in functional literacy for all young people; that is, the ability to feel confident that you can handle the challenges of modern society. That confidence comes when you know that you are able to manage your own learning and will be able to handle that throughout a lifetime. And that," he concluded, "requires the highest possible skills in thinking, communicating, collaborating and decision-making." "But, for goodness' sake, those are just the skills I'm looking for among my employees," exclaimed my companion. "That's just what industry has been trying to tell the academic world for years. Instead of listening, you continue to perpetuate   a set of practices which are opposite to those very skills needed in employment. You teachers think that life is about working alone on some piece of academic research in an ivory tower   different from the daily routines. You just don't understand about working with confusion, nor do you accept the importance of rule-of-thumb calculations or even simple guesswork! This is the real world. There are real issues. What are you or anyone else going to do about just that?" What does the principal mean by "functional literacy"?
The ability to read, write and make calculations. The ability to do every assignment on one's own. The ability to communicate and collaborate with others. The ability to feel confident in the face of challenges.