Jeff Utecht commented on yesterday’s blog with some statements that I would like to continue the discussion with. Jeff said,
(It’s) great that you get too meet with real corporate people and talk about the skills they need and are using on a daily basis. I wish more teachers had the opportunity to sit and talk with a group like that and listen to them talk about the skills they use in the work place, then maybe education would really embrace technology and problem solving skills.
Putting teachers out into the corporate world to become aware of what students need to be learning, although rare, is not unheard off. My son’s high school has a wonderful program that places students into local work environments to learn about work culture and about specific jobs. This job shadowing for students is common. However, in a conversation a few years ago with an educator in New Zealand, I learned that the practice is as common over there, except that it is teachers who do the shadowing. After the experience, they meet, identify the success skills that they witnessed, and then alter their curriculum for the coming year to address those skills.
I recently worked with a school system in Upstate New York who was not satisfied with the states competencies in terms of adequately preparing their children for the current and future work place. So they sent their teachers into the local workplaces for a variety of job shadowing experiences. The educators then met, identified success skills, and enhanced their curriculum by wrapping the skills that the identified around the state’s mandated/tested skills. I was deeply impressed with their foresight.
To be fair, after our second day at Duke CE, I learned that even at the corporate level, project-based education is not always an easy sell. Our image of education remains hardened by years of classrooms designed to prepare people for a workplace characterized by working in a straight row, performing repetitive tasks, under close supervision. Even though the workplace has certainly changed, our image of teaching and learning hasn’t.
How do we tell a new story about education that will compel people to reject the old image in place of a new and more relevant one? This is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.
I would love to see a group of businessmen/women shadow teachers and students for a day. We continually hear about teachers going into businesses, I would be amazed if I ever saw someone from the “real world” see what its like to work with a bell schedule and raging hormones. I think they would benefit greatly-it just can’t be one way.
I agree completely with David Jakes that it needs to be a two way street. Wouldn’t it be great to set up a partnership with a corporate firm in your schools area and allow time for teachers to visit the business and allow business people time to visit schools? I’m not just talking about High School either; I’m talking the whole K-12 spectrum.
“How do we tell a new story about education that will compel people to reject the old image in place of a new and more relevant one? This is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.â€Â
Glad to see I’m not along in thinking about the change factor in schools. Change takes times, the problem is education needed to start changing years ago. I just keep thinking, if education was a business we’d have been out of jobs in the 60 or 70s. I think education needs to look at large long time corporations and see how they mange change. Take a look at a company like Sears. If they still ran their business like they did in the 1800s would they still be around? What changes have they made? How have they made those changes? And what I think the most important question is: What kind of leadership do you need to make that change happen?
Just thinking out loud,
Jeff
Even though the workplace has certainly changed, our image of teaching and learning hasn’t
This begs several questions: 1) is it the primary purpose of school to prepare children for employement and the workplace? 2) If it is (or has been), should it be?
3) who is “we” in “our image of teaching…”?
4) if this “we” is teachers, is it true that the present, unchanged, schooling environment hasn’t changed because teachers haven’t pushed for that change? Would it really make any difference if they did?
5) Who really controls (if anyone does) the environment in schools?
6) If the present setup isn’t geared to preparing students adequately for the workplace, what IS it geared to do, and how did that come about?