Last week, I spoke at the American Leadership Forum Convocation, one of the semi-regular events that invite ALF members and fellows to listen and to discuss. It was an interesting day in two ways. One was the diversity of the attendees. They were teachers, librarians, school and central office administrators, superintendents, school board members, and business people.
The second very interesting part of the day was that it consisted of my opening one hour address, a thirty minute closing, and a one hour panel discussion among school superintendents, with questions from the audience. All of the rest of the time was spent in conversations, both heterogeneous (groups randomly mixed) and homogeneous (grouped by occupation) — very unconference.
I was able to wonder around and listen to the conversations, and there were several surprises. However, the one main surprise that lots of people expressed was how much the entire group, regardless of their position among education stakeholders, agreed that old school does not server today’s children.
Also, fear became a major part of the conversations. This was partially my fault, because I closed the opening keynote by talking about the We’re Not Afraid blog. I presented the blog as an illustration of global collaboration. But being not afraid became one of the themes of many of the conversations.
A conclusion drawn by one group was that if we are to teach lifelong learning skills, then teachers and leaders should be willing to model these skills, to present themselves as master learners. If we are to practice lifelong learning skills, then we should be willing to ask our students, “How do you do this on the Internet?” or “How did you get your web site to do that?”
It models learning lifestyle and offers respect for the skills and knowledge of many of our students. One of the higher ed folks described how they wanted their faculty to understand social networks, and, perhaps, to figure out how to use them. He said that they paid a 25 year old student to come in and demonstrate their social networking practices.
I guess that the biggest surprise for me, not to mention validation, was the conversation among business people. Here are just a few of the comments I managed to type into my iPhone.
- We can’t drag this out. Stop demanding pilot projects and overhaul the system.
- (Classrooms) need to get updated.
- Technology is not the answer.
- If I (forty-something) am able help my children with Their homework, then there may be something wrong.
- Today I don’t need to know everything I just need to know how to find what I need to know.
- There is a disconnect between what we’re doing in school and what we need for life.
- Change is going to happen. Are we going to anticipate the change and facilitate it, or are we going to wait and try to rebuild in the chaos that ensues.
- Drop the text books and give (them) laptops. Textbooks are lousy.
- Give a sabatical to all teachers to make themselves an expert in some area that could be used by the school (leaning theory, etc.)
- Teachers talk about lifelong learning, but they are not willing to practice it (lots of paraphrasing)
About to fly. Long Day. Flying with the Sun.
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Tags: warlick, education, technology, houston, alf, education reform
Dave-
I loved the comment about the forced sabbatical. I’ve long thought that all first year teachers should NOT be given classroom positions. Student teaching is not enough to prepare a 21-year-old to lead the learning of 30+ 17 and 18-year-olds. Give that new teacher a year to work in the school, with multiple master teachers, the school media specialist, with the administration, the building supervisor and engineer, the art and music teachers, etc. Have them sit in on the SAT Prep planning and work with the SIT team. Get them prepared for every facet of the school’s every day operations and slowly work themselves into a teaching role in the school they will actually teach at the next year (not like the current student teaching model) and they will be able to hit the ground running, not scared like most of us were.
Also, I loved the comments about technology. I wonder if any of the teachers there asked the business people whether they were willing to pay more in taxes so we could afford all of that equipment. I’ve got a funny feeling I know what the answer would be… 🙂
I wholeheartedly agree that we should stop with ‘pilots’. To me, whenever we talk about something being a trial, it connotes a lack of confidence from the outset. Everything is a trial.
We need to commit to reinvigorating the systems in schools that enable students and teachers to learn together. That commitment needs to come from administrators, otherwise teachers are devoid of support.
Hello David
I am a curriculum developer in the ministry of education of Israel and I enjoy your blog and learn from reading it. This is an interesting post, from which I have learned. It was very helpful from your side to present some comments of those business people about educational issues. While I agree with almost all their comments, the forth one (“If I (forty-something) am able help my children with Their homework, then there may be something wrong”) seems to me a little strange and irritating. The assumption that this can serve as evidence to the lack of change in the educational system is wrong. Firstly, the long time that has elapsed since someone has finished school doesn’t mean that totally all contents and skills required by the educational system changed or should change. There are always some contents that remain even though a long time has elapsed so it is not very surprising that someone is capable of helping his children in their homework at least in those specific contents even if a great change has been carried out. The same is as to skills and capabilities. Secondly, even if there has been a revolutionary change in contents and skills through the years, it is not surprising that one is able to help his children because he can carry it out simply by learning along with them the required contents and skills and contribute his own input and view as a mature person. So, the ability to help someone’s children in homework doesn’t necessarily mean that changes haven’t been taken place in the educational system through the years.