I am an “old dog” who has followed the growth of the internet from its inception, always focusing on the CLASSROOM as the primary PLACE in our system of education that everyone identifies as a primary conduit from the protection of home to the liberty of adult choices and life. This is where we send our children for formal, systemic, and SAFE learning. What is learned, how much, taught by whom, is all secondary to the idea of the classroom teacher acting in loco parentis, guided by a curriculum that reflects the local culture.

So how do we connect this to the emerging ideas of learning anywhere, anytime? How do we connect the school/classrooms, the safe havens for our children, to the world at large? What can we do to gradually introduce our children into both a REAL world AND a VIRTUAL world at the same time, being sure to differentiate the nature and power of each in young minds? How do we determine what is important to learn if curriculum can be circumvented by open unguided learning?

I worked for many years to “open” the classroom to the world via internet connections, even before there was an “internet”. Once opened, I had to question how to close some part of the world OFF in order to protect my young charges.. and my professional career! I had to also change my practice since information was no longer the main food I gave my students – they were overfed already at home!

If we can keep our eyes on the very nature of schools, we can make the connections and transform them. BUT…

What scares me the most is the emerging of “multiple user virtual environments” that seem to be places of learning… Education Island? River City?

I have been to both and can tell you that the children I encounter could be easily enticed to leave this world for that.. for too much time. We need to remind ourselves of the enormity of the task in the classroom, of grounding our kids in the real world before letting them loose “out there”.

Thanks for listening..
Dan

At the same time, I am trying to sift through the conversations and find my own way through all of this. I think your right, there is this idea throughout the blogosphere that change or reform is needed, and I too am guilty of buying into this. However, you so graciously pointed out, that the change needed is found within each of us and that is where it true reform will begin. I can see that I will be rereading this post for awhile. Thanks David for your clear vision and keeping it real.

My children’s District just hired a new Superintendent & he was speaking to our District Parent group recently.

He spoke of his vision for education and it really resonated with me. He said that there is a subtle shift that has to happen in education – that teachers must move from teaching a class to teaching 24 (or 31 or 42) children.

They are all individuals, all have different strengths, and all learn in different ways. We hurt them by considering them as one, homogeneous group – because for any of them that don’t exactly fit the “mold” (and who among us does??), it gives them the message that they’re not “okay” just how they are.

Of course, that’s an exageration – as I’ve never seen a teacher that expects ALL kids to be the same. But there are silent messages given each time kids are expected to all complete the same assignment, the same way, and given little flexibility to create their own learning. When lectures are delivered the same way, when the same worksheets are used year after year, when there are no options. When we don’t LISTEN to the children, when we as adults decide what is best, when we fail to ask questions and really LISTEN to their answers, when we fail to understand them and make assumptions instead.

The educational “transformation” that I think has to happen is not one that abolishes schools or teachers or subjects, but one that learns to honour each individual for the unique gifts that they bring to the world. Because that kind of mirroring teaches them to honour, value and forgive themselves.

And we can accomplish so much when we believe in ourselves!