For years now, in schools I’ve heard people claiming that this new thing or that old thing is no good because it doesn’t prepare students for the real world.
Since it seems to be such an enormous motivator for people, I’d like to come clean and ask for help in understanding what this real world is. You’d assume I would know. After all, I’ve lived and traveled all over the world, fished offshore for lobster and started multiple businesses, and have communications on most continents. Am I in the real world? I don’t know!
But I do know a couple things. This real world, which sounds fictional to me, is always invoked by people who are fearful of change. They often see education as a system where we process kids through reliably and achieve standardized, reliable results. Controlling everything possible is admittedly comforting.
In 2003, Orchard Gardens Pilot School in Massachusetts, nearly 100 percent black and Hispanic, opened its doors with a posse of security guards to ensure the campus was under tight controls. (read more…)
Recently, I had the opportunity to record a Google Hangout with four connected educators on “Growing Your PLN.” Lyn Hilt (@l_hilt), Nick Provenzano (@thenerdyteacher), Lisa Dabbs (@teachingwthsoul) and Patrick Larkin (@patrickmlarkin) joined the conversation and shared a wealth of advice on how educators can develop a strong personal learning network.
What is a personal learning network?
A Personal Learning Network is an informal learning network that enables an individual to work collaboratively, connect, share, encourage and grow professionally alongside both local and global connections. In the conversation, Provenzano shares how he connects with his PLN via social media, some of whom may be in the classroom next door, and others around the world, as these connections give him an ever growing network of people who he trusts in the field.
“It’s amazing what one tweet can do or what one tweet can start,” shares Dabbs, in discussing how social media can create a chain reaction of connections. (read more…)
Last month, I received the great honor of being recognized by Education Week magazine and the U.S. Department of Education as a 2013 Leader to Learn From. It was a tremendous honor to receive special recognition from Assistant Secretary of Education Deb Delisle and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The other 15 leaders receiving the recognition came from all around the country, and the type of school systems represented was very diverse.
It was great to connect with these other educational leaders in the short amount of time we had together in Washington, D.C. We are making sure to continue to stay connected to learn from each other as we all recognize the variety of strengths we bring to the table. However, this got me thinking: if you’re a connected educator, a lifelong learner, striving to constantly be better no matter by what means, you are a leader to learn from. (read more…)
I think I have always been a connected educator even before “Al Gore invented the Internets.” I received journals in the mail, signed up for numerous workshops, attended any and all conferences I could get sent to, continually joined school committees, and I taught many in-service courses. With that type of exposure, I developed a fairly evident footprint in my school and district. People knew who I was, and what my educational philosophy was because I lived it. Of course looking back to my 20th-century career with a 21st-century eye, there are many things I did then that I would never do today.
The idea of an educator’s digital footprint is far more than just a reaching reputation. If one is to have any involvement online, that involvement better be positive and constructive, for it is there for eternity and for all to see. If one has amassed a number of good positives in one’s digital impression, it is not usually offset by the occasional misstep that we are all prone to have from time to time. (read more…)
I’ve been wrestling with what would work as an American collective narrative, what could unite us in investing and supporting public education the way we should. The Finnish people appear to agree collectively on a narrative of equity, for example.
Turning the mirror back on the United States, we’d like to believe that Americans could gather around this same call of equity. In reality though, Americans prefer a narrative of meritocracy. We tell rags-to-rich stories of folks, such as Bill Gates, for example. This so-called poor man who came from nothing and built an empire attended one of the most privileged boarding schools in the nation; the college he dropped out of was a small university — Harvard. Gates had access to a computer when few people even really knew what computers were. The reality of his narrative is really one of privilege, connections, and access.
So, what might be a narrative Americans could rally around? I’ve come to believe that perhaps personalization is the answer. (read more…)
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