Who are your Customers?

One of the commentors of yesterday’s post, Roger Stack, closed his response with…

My nephew tells me he does much more complex thinking in his online gaming environments than he does at school. Sad.

This is not an uncommon statement from our students. The information environment that they choose to participate in is often more challenging, engaging, and compelling than most of their classrooms. Roger also says…

I think when students become proficient with new habits of mind they can become more critical of out-dated curriculum and want to escape. Or they can become cynical because their new thinking tools and skills are not used to question their own and others fundamental assumptions about the world in which we live.

It concerns me that these new empowering skills (habits of mind) are being learned by students outside of their classrooms. I know that many readers of my blog believe that education should be freed to evolve, and I do not disagree with this notion. I know that education will and should change in ways that many of us might not even be ready to imagine. However, we must hold on to the notion that public education is a cornerstone to democracy, that all citizens, children and adults, deserve access to effective opportunities to learn, the tools to learn and work knowledge, and unfettered access to the global conversation. The alternative, In my opinion, is a democracy that isn’t.

Upon initially reading Stack’s comments, I was taken back to a post I wrote a while back (The Next Story). The gist was that in only a few years, the students in today’s classrooms will be voting. They will be participating in decisions on school funding, curriculum, capital expenditures, teacher/student ratio, and so much more. The future success of public education is very much in their hands.

They are our customers.

What impressions of education, schooling, teaching, learning, and curriculum are they going to take into the voting booth. How were they treated as customers? How were their enlightened wants and needs fulfilled? How well did we enlighten them?

My friend, Steve Dembo, published a podcast last night in response to a recent audio program of mine, where I interviewed a number of teachers about their visions of education in the future. Steve believes that these teachers, and I suspect the vision that I expressed, are too optimistic, that we will not move that far that quickly.

Unfortunately, Steve has every reason to believe this. NCLB has resulted in substantial literacy gains of students who, before, were shamefully under-supported by their schools. However, the national legislation and its underfunding have also led to an education system that, in terms of a dynamic institution evolving with the changing needs of its students and their future, has remained stagnant during much of the last decade.

Moving forward at a rate that is appropriate to our students’ needs is possible. I think we should also dare to expect it, for the sake not only of our children, but for our future.

3 thoughts on “Who are your Customers?”

  1. What concerns me is not that students are learning new skills outside the classroom but that we recognise and build on that informal learning within formal education.

    Fortunately my nephew is on the tail end of an old curriculum in our State system – a new curriculum is being progressively implemented in his wake…

    Many students here have already had – and continue to have – the chance to participate in decisions in school curriculum. This began 5 years ago with a government sponsored community consultation process called ‘Tasmania Together’ ( http://www.tasmaniatogether.tas.gov.au/ ) Students actively paticipated in ftf and online forums and had some very insightful things to say about education.

    This was then followed up by a State Education Department Curriculum Consultation during which students had further considerable input – along with parents, teachers and the wider community. ( http://www.education.tas.gov.au/learningtogether/ )

    As a result we have a new Curriculum Framework called the Essential Learnings ( http://ltag.education.tas.gov.au/ )

    This process has been exciting and challenging as it confronts the views that you mentioned in your earlier post of education that are decades old. So students have had an impact NOW and will do so again as voters in the future. Like you I remain very optimistic about the future of education.

  2. David,

    Your entry has resonated some many thoughts within me. Even with the advantage of 1-to-1 technology in our state there is so much more learning going on for students that is outside the context of the classroom. I credit the framers of Maine Learning with Technology Initiative (MLTI) that it is not all about the technology it is about the education. All of time and effort has gone into professional development for teachers on utilizing the technology by engaging learners. Unfortunately there are factors that have limited or prevented teachers from maximizing the experience, I’m not talking about teacher apprehension, like NCLB! I agree that we should expect these empowering skills to develop in the classroom with a greater emphasis on professional development of those skills and technology integration specifically and less professional development time/meeting time on developing classroom activities to show “mastery” of standards from a checklist.

  3. Let’s try it again (this time I’ll stop watching the USC-UT football game to proof)

    David,

    Your entry has resonated so many thoughts within me. Even with the advantage of 1-to-1 technology in our state there is so much more learning going on for students that is outside the context of the classroom. I credit the framers of Maine Learning with Technology Initiative (MLTI) that it is not all about the technology it is about educating our customers. A lot of time and effort has gone into professional development for teachers on utilizing the technology to engage learners. Unfortunately there are factors that have limited or prevented teachers from maximizing the experience, I’m not talking as much about teacher apprehension but NCLB! I agree that we should expect these empowering skills to develop in the classroom but with a greater emphasis within professional development of those skills and technology integration specifically and less professional development time/meeting time on developing classroom activities to show “mastery” of standards from a checklist.

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