Creating a vision for our educational system means imagining what schools should look like in the future. These visions are constructed within certain constraints and at the same time the possibilities are infinite. Resources are always limited, especially time. We are also bound by underlying cultural assumptions and more salient political and economic barriers. However, within this framework, we can generate innumerable pictures of what a better education system might look like. Visioning is a skill that we must practice in order to master. Realizing the visions that we construct rely upon taking factors into account that matter to future generations. Among other goals, we are trying to prepare young minds for a labor market that will not exist until decades later. What will it mean to be well educated 30 years from now? The impact of globalization and technological innovation will mean that we must be willing to change the paradigm that currently shapes the decision-making process in the field of education.
Originally, schools in the U.S. were institutions reserved primarily for a privileged wealthy class. In the early 1800’s the concept of public education evolved and by the early part of the 20th century, all states had developed a public school system. Today, schools operate much the same way they have for decades. Although schools and teachers have acquired more advanced instructional tools, fundamentally school systems have not changed. What is preventing education from moving forward? What can education leaders do to facilitate a change? State mandated testing does not support the changes necessary for our students to compete in the age of globalization and technological innovation. If the state mandates a paper and pencil style test for our students, then educators are forced to prepare the students to pass state mandated tests. You cannot change curriculum without changing the political, economic and legal context created by the state and federal government. Another consideration is acceptance of change by parents, community and society as a whole. How many times have we heard “get back to the basics” in reference to education? Some feel they learned the “sit and get” method and feel their children should be educated that way too. The public school system was designed to educate and prepare students for the workforce. Therefore, one cannot help but ask the question, “If our workforce needs have changed as the result of globalization and new technologies, why hasn’t education?” We have to take into account that education is not an autonomous social system.
What connection exists between education and globalization? How quickly does the connection gain integrity and momentum? Globalization permeates all aspects of education from the location of schools to the price of municipal bonds issued by a district. It shapes curriculum when members of the decision-making class reasonably compare the math and science scores of students in the U.S. to those of students in both developed and underdeveloped countries. National and International conflict over religion and resources shapes the foreign policies of the state within which our schools exist. Hopefully only in the evenings, after completing their homework, our students play video games against their peers residing in places from Berlin to Cape Town. Our students will compete for jobs in new industries, such as biotechnology, against candidates native to Singapore or Prague. As our class practiced visioning, representatives from each group mentioned globalization. The phenomenon will become increasingly significant for educators as societies continue to improve communication and transportation technology.
There is a basic idea that today’s students are connected or tethered to technology every second of their life. The only exception happens to be when they are in school. According to Don Tapscott, author of Grown up Digital, today’s/tomorrow’s students are digital natives while we from past generations are digital immigrants. He further points out that today’s Net Generation is characterized by 8 behavioral norms. Of these norms, freedom, customization, collaboration, entertainment, and speed have a direct correlation with student engagement in school. Evidence can be seen in their growing demand for online, anytime, and customized learning experiences. At last years Midwinter conference, Tapscott shared that American student enrollment in online coursework has grown to well over a million students from 42,000 in 2002. Today’s students require learning experiences that include multisensory stimulation as a norm rather than an exception. Unfortunately, teaching and school still looks like it has for the better part of the last 60 years. In a January 2010 article in Kappan magazine titled Education and the Role of the Educator in the Future, co-author Ian Jukes suggests that “in a world experiencing exponential change…we continue focusing on the short term-- preparing kids for the next unit, next semester, or the next grade—we fail to recognize that our current system is becoming obsolete”. When asked why he thought he has become the best hockey player who ever lived, despite his lack of size and strength, Wayne Gretzky replied by saying that while other players go to the puck, I have always busied myself by going to where the puck is going to be”.
Perhaps its time to start thinking beyond the 3 R’s, summer breaks, 7-period days, and age related grade levels and start enveloping our curriculum standards within 21st century survival skills. It is a reality that our current generation of students must be taught differently and that much different will be required of them to succeed in school, work, and society. As educational leaders we must create inertia towards change by convincing the public that the old fashion way no longer produces the desired outcome. How can we graphically demonstrate the consequences of our schools staying stuck in the past? It seems that we only argue over two possibilities; going back to the good old days or staying on the current track. As educational leaders, we have to generate other options so that public discourse regarding education revolves around new possibilities rather than old ones.
Schools have stayed the same for many, many years. Not only in the way we teach but in the school calendar as well. The school year was set up so the students would be off during the summer so they could help the family harvest the crops. Time as seen the school year become more spread out with summer getting shorter and shorter.
ReplyDeleteStudents now live in an instant notification society. Look at what happened in AZ a few weeks back and what is going on in Egypt as we speak. When we were students we would not hear about this information for several days if not weeks. Look at when 9/11 happened we sat in our classes with our students watching the building fall. Sixty years before people learned about Pearl Harbor that night on the radio broadcast or Monday morning in the newspaper. We are now in a world when we get info instantly but yet we are still teaching like it is 1941.
I think one of the down falls to the way we are not keeping up is the cost. Technology is not cheap and schools cannot afford to have the latest and greatest.
Some say an educated society is a dangerous society. Do we really want a majority of the citizens to be well-educated, well-spoken, free-thinkers? Or should we strive towards a majority of people who are compliant, dependent, and ignorant?
ReplyDeleteOf course, in America, the mantra has always been that our schools should educate ALL students to their highest potential, with the hopes that they will each in turn become productive and creative members of society. After all, they are the future leaders of this country.
With that in mind, our school systems around the country were set-up to be mirror images of one another, with the same number of school days per year, the same number of hours per day, and the same number of robot teachers guiding our students' learning. The reality is, that there is NO cookie-cutter formula for reaching every student.
It is time, and some have already embraced the idea, to differentiate schools to meet the needs of our students, staffs, and communities. It is within the realm of possibility for schools to look completely different, inside and out, while still producing college-ready students who can also function as productive workers and responsible citizens.
Some creative ideas that I've come across include: year round schools, single-sex schools, night schools, early-college high schools, study abroad, university lab schools, and magnet schools.
As i sat in one of the lectures at the mid-winter conference, the "how" we conduct business in US education and its historical perspectives were deeply discussed through the eyes and experience of Dr. Paul Clore. Dr. Clore in his lecture compared education to the industrial world were education functions on the same premises as a factory line, making an attempt to 'cookie cut' all students. No Child Left Behind... ALL children will learn and he compared it to the medical field were no hospital has made such a statement... ALL patients will survive. A second point in his lecture was Einstein's definition of insanity... "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I think this summarizes our discussions of the need for change in US education systems, especially now in the 21st century with a globalization economy and competition. As current and future leaders in the public school system, our need to be transformational leaders and visionary problem solvers is of essence.
ReplyDeleteI know Dr. Paul Clore from his days as superintendent of Columbus ISD, the George West before going to Gregory Portland. Dr. Clore grew up in the Valley and has a very grounded view of the educational needs of our state. His definition of insanity is precisely the one Fenwick English uses as a metaphor for what we are doing wrong today. We can no more cookie cut the education for our kids than we can cookie cut the circumstances they bring with them from home or the circumstances to which they return when the school day ends. We have a lot of crative thinking and learning to do as educators...great post....great responses. dh
ReplyDeleteWhile visioning is necessary and important it becomes increasing complicated in this fast paced world of changes in technology and difficult economic times. As much as we would like to get caught up, we will always be behind. It is a vicious cycle of our system. Education does not have the capacity of funding nor does it generate the funds that some believe we have to have the latest and greatest technology to supply to each and every student. However, if we have some of the latest technology to expose our students to and have a work force of people to be innovative, it goes back to preparing students to know how to find knowledge, research, collaborate, to present information, work on complex problems, develop citizenship, and take on global issues. In order to have valid data for comparing school to school and nation to nation, we must look far beyond test scores and national standards to give an accurate account of how well we are doing in the good old United States. As Roland stated in his post, what makes us great is our belief that everyone can and should be given the chance to have a free and appropriate education. That means that we have larger class sizes than that of many countries and a diverse group of students with a variety of educational challenges that we are given charge of not only educating these students, but to a high level as well with the expectation of graduation. Should we want to do better and find new and innovative ways to teach our kids’?—Absolutely, we always need to have a desire to continue to grow and improve, however, if we look beyond test scores and compare what our students are doing compared to even ten years prior, I believe we are doing an amazing job in our school systems. Some say to extend the school day. It already has been extended. There are more tutorial sessions and homework clubs increasing our days to 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, and sometimes even later, so we have extended the school day. Extend the school year? We have done that as well. We offer longer summer school sessions, for students that need to meet Student Success Initiative requirements, school continues till the next assessment in many cases. As I look around, I notice that our classrooms have changed drastically just in the last five years. On almost every school visit we went on there were projectors, computers, smart tablets, and various other forms of interactive technology in the classrooms. Has what we’ve been doing working? Perhaps we have not given ourselves enough credit for the visioning that is already taking place? I think Jim Collins, author of “Good To Great” says it best, “Looking back on our research, what’s most striking to me about our findings is the absence of a magic moment in any of the good-to-great companies—or in our own journey to understanding. The real path to greatness, it turns out, requires simplicity and diligence. It requires clarity, not instant illumination. It demands each of us to focus on what is vital—and to eliminate all of the extraneous distractions.
ReplyDeleteWhen making major decisions, we usually like to say "Two heads are better than one". School Boards are made up of a team of seven members, campuses usually have several administrators, athletic teams have multiple coaches; all these groups work together to make decisions, plans, and implement strategies to be successful. But many times when schools talk of their vision for the education of our students, we try to single handled change it on our own. We must involve more of our stakeholders. With different experiences and perspectives to draw on, we may come up with better ideas for the vision. To establish a good vision, it would beneficial to have different mindsets (bliefs and understandings) of education. The greater the differences in the mindsets of the stakeholders, the greater resistance you might have to the vision. Many times the differences in mindsets arise from the lack of exposure to alternative mindsets and the understanding of education and the "system". In order to implement a vision for education, we must get more stakeholders involved in the process so that the vision may truly be an obtainable goal and not just the ideas of educators alone. If we truly want our students to be prepared for our ever changing society, we must change now and quit doing more of the same.
ReplyDeleteAs I sat in one of the lectures at the mid-winter conference, the "how" we conduct business in US education and its historical perspectives were deeply discussed through the eyes and experience of Dr. Paul Clore. Dr. Clore in his lecture compared education to the industrial world were education functions on the same premises as a factory line, attempting to 'cookie cut' all students. No Child Left Behind... ALL children will learn as measured by state assessment and he compared it to the medical field were no hospital has made such a statement... ALL patients will survive. A second point in his lecture was Einstein's definition of insanity... "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I think this summarizes our discussions of the need for change in US education systems, especially now in the 21st century with a globalization economy and competition. As current and future leaders in the public school system, our need to be transformational leaders and visionary problem solvers is of essence.
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