I have talked lately, at a number of events, about telling the new story. I believe that it is essential, for our future, that we begin imagine, assemble, and articulate a new vision for the 21st century classroom — tell a compelling new story. However, Monday, in Texas, an educator suggested something to me that, quite frankly, sent chills down my back.
Our children and teachers are suffering under the constraints of policies, structures, budgets, curriculum, and methods that spring out of the stories of our classroom days 10, 20, 40 years ago — and those who vote on local, state, and national education issues, do so from those perspectives. But if we take the story forward, say 10 and 20 more years, when the people voting are the youngsters in our classrooms today, classrooms that seemed too artificial, teachers who were not educated in contemporary tools, curriculum that seemed irrelevant, and learning methods that were deadly boring.
What are they going to be willing to vote for, when it comes to the schooling of their children?
What stories are they going to tell?
What do you think?
I think that chill down the spine is the thought that those children in years to come will decimate the educational system that “did nothing” for them. I wonder if there is a correlation between voter apathy and school achievement? Changes seem to be coming at higher levels, but K-12 is certainly going to be a tough nut to crack. (Similar post – http://idarknight.blogspot.com/2005/12/knowledge-stick-and-flow.html
Dark,
I think that higher-ed has the sense that they are threatened. We don’t get it yet in K12. We’re slowly strangling on stale working conditions, curriculum, etc. — so slowly that we don’t know it.
I was talking about this over lunch and the other issue is – as always money. Unless there is a proven safe path, there are very few who are willing to go out on a limb, especially in Education. Everyone wants to try it smaller, in pilots so that if it fails, it’s buried, if it doesn’t scale they have an out – but the problem is that pilots still need money and have more risk because there is no “surrounding support”. Scaling requires a change in culture for an institution and education is notorious for not changing.
I am frustrated about the lack of willingness to take “risks” in terms of a dynamic change in the way we teach our students. I do feel a glimmer of hope when I think of what has been done in Maine with the 1 on 1 program and today I saw mention of a plan to give laptops to all 7-12 students in South Dakota. One of the biggest things that troubles me is that students today in many cases are using web 2.0 tools to live and participate in live outside of the classroom. School is becoming another hoop that some of these gifted students must jump through before they move on to the next step in their life. Is that really what we want school to become? – a meaningless hoop that must be “endured” to get on with other things?