I got my April/May issue of edutopia yesterday and was thrilled to find an article about Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy, our friend, Chris Lehmann’s school. It’s actually an amazing article that speaks very little about technology, and much more about trying to grow a new kind of environment for teaching and learning. In it, Chris says,
When I hear people say it’s our job to create the twenty-first-century workforce, it scares the hell out of me. Our job is to create twenty-first-century citizens. We need workers, yes, but we also need scholars, activists, parents — compassionate, engaged people. We’re not reinventing schools to create a new version of a trade school. We’re reinventing schools to help kids be adaptable in a world that is changing at a blinding rate.
You can read the entire article at on its online shelf.
What I like about edutopia is that it seems to be celebrating, and as a result, lifting teacher culture. It seems to be saying, out loud, that a teacher is a pretty cool thing to be.
Thank you… all of us at SLA were *thrilled* by that article — they really captured a sense of our school, we felt.
And you touch on something that I’m mulling in my brain, trying to get to a point where I can write about it coherently, but essentially it’s this:
It’s about the pedagogy — the power of all of our ideas — first and the technology second. At SLA, the technology tools we use inform/enable a constructivist / connectivist pedagogy, not the other way around. That’s why, I think, we have been able to build such a strong culture there in eight months, because it’s never just been about the laptop. In fact, when we interviewed kids for next year’s class, our students would really get upset if an interviewee answered the question, “Why do you want to come to SLA?” with “You all get laptops.”
This idea with SLA is very interesting to me. After reading their article I thought that this would allow all of the students equal opportunities to be involved in the classroom, and would also help relieve some anxiety from those students who have trouble participating. One great point was the use of ibook’s which would save alot of trees and money. On top of that it’s keeping the students interest, most importantly, but for how long? It’s new now and interesting, but when it becomes the “norm” will it still hold their attention.
Also if we loose the attention of the students how will we know that they are still working, are there people monitoring them in the chat rooms, or around the class? Are we no longer teachers but discaplinarians? Making it a home-like environment makes it seem just a little to laxed.
Are we really preparing these students for the real world? Because definetly wherever their future employment is, it will most likely not feel like home. Will this cripple our students to not be professional enough, and ontop of that are we neglecting the social skills learned through school? I don’t mean socializing with friends but face-to-face interactions with our authoritative figures. Will they be able to stand tall under pressure and criticism if it’s not behind a keyboard?
If the students are going to college, this raises another point, that this program is way ahead of the college programs. In college you have to sit through hours of lecture, memorize practically whole books, and be able to spit it back on a test through conceptual thinking. If the students are not practicing for this will they be able to handle the pressures of college? I do like the idea of less tests for memorizing but we still need to equip them with the skills to be able to do this.
Overall it’s a great concept, but it’s a bit overwhelming all at once. This seems more like a project that needs to be gently moved into. We need to be preparing students for the future, but what their future’s hold probably won’t be behind a computer all day. As for eutopia… if anyone knows of Ursula K Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, we all know that there’s really no such thing as an eutopia because everything comes at a cost, but is it one we can afford?
Dave,
Did you see that 2cents worth was voted “best blog for educators”? (page 39) Congratulations and keep up the great work!