I suspect that I’ve been treating teachers a bit harshly over the past few weeks, reporting on conversations that are happening in conjunction with work I’m doing with education leaders (administrators and school board members). They’ve asked many times and in many places, “How are we going to get teachers to start teaching this way or that way?” I heard it again, last week, at the Colorado Association of School Boards, during the follow up session to my keynote on contemporary literacy.
I’m traveling across the country, speaking to and having conversations with the full range of school stakeholders, including parents and students — and the push-back is coming mostly from the teachers. But I think that there is good reason for this. Teachers have, for years, especially during the NCLB years, been the ones who’ve been told, “Fix this! Do this better! Do this harder! Make this happen! You are the one! You’re accountable! You have to work this miracle — loaves and fishes!”
It’s no wonder that teachers get skittish when I talk about such radical changes in teaching and learning practice –– especially the young ones who have only known classrooms that are rigid, regimented, rigorous, and quantifiably measured.
I’ll say here what I’m saying to those school board members, “You have to give teachers permission and the keys to the car.” We have to be able to… I have to be able to say, “Here’s what needs to happen before we can expect teachers to retool their practices.
I tell them that teachers need:
- Time to plan, collaborate, research, assess and adapt, build, and innovate (I tell them 3 to 4 hours a day — everyday).
- Classrooms that are equipped for learning in an abundant information environment, rather than an information-scarce environment (This means wifi, a laptop in every teacher and learner’s hand, one or more projectors in each classroom, and access to the emerging technologies that channel contemporary literacy).
- Permission to safely innovate and facility to engage in professional conversations about the changes needed for relevant education.
This is just my list right now. But I suspect that education leaders and other stakeholders must come to realize that some architecture needs to happen before we can renovate the classroom and reinvent education. When that’s happened, then we can start to expect teachers to facilitate the learning that our children deserve.
Image Citation:
TWM, “Clocks Go Back.” Twmâ„¢’s Photostream. 29 Oct 2006. 4 Dec 2007 <http://flickr.com/photos/twmlabs/282089123/>.
NCES, of course, is the