Title: Listening to Our Students and Transcending K-12 to Save Our Nation
Authors: Alec Ostrom, Brian Hack, Don Prentice
Publisher: Xlibris
ISBN: 978-1-7960-7854-1
Genre: Education
Pages: 419
Reviewed by: Allison Walker

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Have you heard the joke about the high school graduate who says, “I can calculate the limit of x on a line graph, but don’t ask me to balance my checkbook”? A few teachers have, and they don’t think it’s very funny. The way subjects are taught in schools today disconnect them from the real world, argues authors and educators Alec Ostrom, Brian Hack and Don Prentice. The current “Teach It, Test It, Forget It” model only teaches students to hate learning because a mess of memorized factoids have little added value or application for them. Eschewing the old system, Ostrom, Hack and Prentice take on the daunting task of rewriting how schools are organized and students taught in their book Listening to Our Students and Transcending K-12 to Save Our Nation.

The world children live in today is not the world our present education model was designed in, the authors state. Children today were born with access to cell phones and computers, yet many of our education models haven’t changed since before the Internet. The Digital Age of Learning System (DALS) is an entirely new concept for education and for private business franchise. Instead of teaching core subjects English, mathematics, science and global studies, DALS schools teach broad subjects common to the widest range of trades and vocations; including interpreting media and news sources, creating professional networks, and self-presentation through speech and dress. The DALS subjects incorporate core topics such as English and math, but in ways which are meaningful to their application in the real world. DALS enrollment is both voluntary and a privilege. Each student designs their own curriculum, learning style and attendance policy along with a support network of parents or guardians, as well as with their teachers. This creates much more hands-on involvement from family, and gives a lot of responsibility and decision-making power to the student. Students who consistently fail to meet their set standards are expelled from DALS and given a probationary period before re-enrollment can be considered.

The DALS concept is both bold and exciting. The authors base their concept on anecdotal evidence from extracurricular programs which incorporated core subject matter into trade projects, as well as from their own long careers in the education field. Their plan is cleanly written, if a bit unclear on the technical details. The authors may be waiting on real world evolution to organize the finer details of their plan. When it works, the authors promise it will work spectacularly well, and their book is so convincing it’s easy to believe them. Listening to Our Students and Transcending K-12 to Save Our Nation is a strong pitch for the DALS franchise, combining decades of teaching experience between the three authors, with a comprehensive and well-written new standard for teaching and engaging students.

While self-limiting in some ways, DALS is an intriguing new concept with strong potential, which can only be truly tested and advanced in the real world. In addition, the authors promise additional manuals to supplement the concept behind DALS schools. Even if readers don’t buy into the franchise, Listening to Our Students and Transcending K-12 to Save Our Nation will challenge the way we think about the current education system, its many deficiencies, and its many potentials for improvement.