I feel a need to rant politics here. I believe, and I preach, that the quality of rapid change that we immigrants from the old century are finding so hard to accomodate may actually be a precious opportunity to inspire learning among our students. Part of being, what Alan November calls, fearless learners is being empowered not only with the contemporary tools of learning, but also the responsibility of learning.
Students should be shown a future that is theirs for the inventing, problems that they will solve, new experiences that they will facilitate, and new conditions that they will be challenged to adapt to and make the most of. If this is portrayed as their learning expectations, then they are empowered to be fearless.
I grew up believing that when I became an adult, the system would have adequately and appropriately prepared me for my adulthood and all of its responsibilities. I believed that there was a body of knowledge that would be taught to me, and after that moment, I would be ready to be an adult. I’m still waiting 😉
Waiting learners are not what we should be cultivating in our classroom. Waiting learners have no energy to drive the learning engine. Waiting learners are not fearless learners. I believe that the message that we need to be delivering is,
“We don’t know what you’re going to need to know in the future! We can not describe the jobs you will have or the opportunities you will enjoy! We do know that you must have the skills to teach yourself, and that you will need to understand and be a part of the place, people, and the time in which you live and from where you have come — and we will do everything that we can to help you do that.”
There were two parts of that statement. A description of new goals (teaching students to teach themselves), and a promise that we will do this for our children. Yet, if children are paying attention, then they see us, their communities, saying, “We do not need to be paying so much for education.” “My children are out of school, why would I want to pay for this bond?”
The schools of Wake County, my county, are trying to pass a bond referendum. We desperately need new schools for the thousands of new students who enter our county every year. The last bond attempt failed. Indications are, that this one will fail as well, as proposed. The school system has been trying to pare down the amount. For instance, the announcement was made this week that new high schools will not have stadiums. The classroom sizes of new elementary and middle schools will be smaller than originally planned. These two decisions will save millions, but at the expense of what?
Children who are paying attention do not see future oriented adults in their community. The see stinginess, and a complete lack of concern for their children, their children’s future, and their own future. It makes me angry 😉
November, Alan. “Flat Classroom Learning Engines.” Leadership Practice.18 Apr 2005.Apple Learning Interchange.15 Apr 2006. <http://ali.apple.com/november/>.
Photo:
Ruurmo. “Suenos…Del Futuro.” Flickr.com.30 Dec 2005.15 Apr 2006. <http://flickr.com/photos/rufino_uribe/79239753/>.
David – The worst part of the “Paring down” is that those not supporting investment in schools usually say they feel the schools have all the money they need, they’re just not spending it wisely. There’s this huge pocket of money being wasted – too many administrators and bureaucrats – they’ll tell stories about their friend’s cousin who works in some school district department that talks about some wasteful practice they’ve seen… And some of that is true, but if you added up the money saved it would amount to 1% of the school districts entire budget – not enough to build schools or stadiums or whatever else needs to be done (tech infrastructure and training and time for educators to design real school change for themselves and their school site – with help from their students). It will take hitting that critical mass you’ve talked about. It will take the issues of a flat world economy to smack us between the eyes before people will see that something needs to be done and by then we will be in catch-up mode. Imagine if we went after this like when we went to the Moon.
It’s an uphill battle, but let’s keep fighting!
Learning is messy!
Brian
Brian,
You make a very good point. I worked for state government for six years, and struggle the entire time, trying to understand why so many people question so much about what happens in government. It doesn’t happen in other institutions, like business. Do we think IBM doesn’t waste money, or Apple, or GM? I think that it is the nature of Democracy, that people feel obliged to question government spending. It is also in the nature of government to provide for those services that are so absolutely critical to its nation’s survival and prosperity, that the services can not be left to the market place — and education is certainly one of those services.
In my opinion, while adapting to a time of rapid change, if schools are not wasting money, then they aren’t doing their jobs. If we are not experimenting and taking risks right now, then we’re just being caretakes for a future that will never be.
I have taken your “flat classroom” idea and added to your ideas over on my page. Helping teachers see themselves as innovators and teacher leaders is going to be the toughest part of this redesigning schools as we know them.
I added your book to my page as well. Stop by and say hi!
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/
I think that the flat classroom idea is necessary – as a Technology Facilitator in a Middle School I wonder how we can begin to bring about this change – Is there any way that we can start this at a test site and try it out… Things need to change drastically – but until we can point to a classroom that is doing this and show an improvement on testing directly related to this message I don’t believe we will get educators to change… any ideas?
ncitsgirl
Gracias por postear mi foto “sueños del futuro”, es un placer tratándose de que también soy profesor en Venezuela. Un cordial saludo. Rufino Uribe (ruurmo)
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