Comments on: Thoughts about educational change inspired by videos and blog conversations

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:44:10 +0000

May I just cheerlead you educators for a second? It’s great to see teachers being leaders on environmental and biodiversity issues. There’s a really terrific example that was announced today. The association of biology teachers is lining up with Amphibian Ark to take on the fight to save hundreds of endangered species of frogs and other amphibians. Jeff Corwin’s video thanking them, and a link to the news release, are posted on my frog blog:
http://frogmatters.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/jeff-corwin-video-thanks-biology-teachers-for-hopping-on-board/
This is really important. Consider the sheer, numerical power of the partnership:
•There are 6,000 biology teachers that are in the association…
•And let’s say each of them has 100 students…
•And each of those students has a sibling, and 1.5 parents, and 2 grandparents, and 2 close friends — and tells them all about the crisis
•That’s 6,000 teachers, 600,000 students, another 600,000 sisters and brothers, 900,000 parents, 1.2 million grandparents, and another 1.2 million friends — all informed, spreading the word, demanding and taking action

Like a frog jumping into a pond, the ripple effect of biology teachers rallying behind Amphibian Ark can be transformational for this cause. So I salute the teachers, and Jeff Corwin for doing all he can to raise awareness. You’re making a huge difference.

By: Wesley Fryer

Wesley Fryer — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:35:49 +0000

Sanford: Please do NOT post additional advertisements for your book to my blog. I have deleted several of your comments on other posts with this information previously, and I am leaving the start of your latest advertising comment (#7) but removing all links so you (and others) will see this note. (I’m also emailing you this request.) I congratulate you on the completion of your book, and I am sure you are eager to let lots of people know about it. The comment area of my blog is not an appropriate venue for advertising your book, however. Thanks very much for respecting this request. I certainly invite you to engage in conversations and dialog here on my blog, but please don’t attempt to use this space as a personal advertising platform. Thanks!

- Wesley Fryer

By: Chris Betcher

Chris Betcher — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:29:13 +0000

Wow, what a powerful article Wes. Thanks for writing it. AS you pointed out, it’s easy to say that “schools need to change”, but much harder to get down to the actual changes that need to be made. You’ve managed to hit on what would seem to be the key issues - reduction of content in favour of a focus on what it means to actually learn, a rethink of how a school day is structured and how we need to change the current way we break down learning into discrete boxes of content, and a redefinition of what it takes to “pass”. Some great thought provoking stuff as always.
Here is Australia we have just had a change of government and one of the major platform issues that brought this new government to power was educational reform. Specifically they have promised to provide 1 to 1 access to every student in grades 9-12 (not sure in what form that will take, and it would be nice to extend that to all grades, but it’s a start if they can make it happen!) As you point out though, it goes way beyond just putting computers into schools and I think we have an excellent window of opportunity here in Australia right now to bring the educational debate to center stage. Combined with our other big issue - a national curriculum framework - I really hope that we can start to talk about the bigger issues behind just having the technology and to look at how we might make fundamental changes to the educational environment into which we make them fit. Your article hits on many of the issues we need to get our head around.

By: Sanford Aranoff

Sanford Aranoff — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:03:18 +0000

I am an adjunct Associate Professor of Mathematics at Rider University, active as a substitute teacher and mentor in high schools, and a retired professor of physics from Rutgers University. I have taken extensive notes from my experiences and given them to my protégés. Recently I collected them into a book. I suggest that your library purchase the book for the benefit of students, parents, and teachers…. [remaining comment content deleted by Wesley - please see the next comment (my own) for context]

By: Ken Carroll

Ken Carroll — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:49:52 +0000

I wrote about the utter contempt I felt for this for video back in October:

http://blog.praxislanguage.com/2007/10/27/a-vision-of-students-today-is-insipid-agitprop/

I haven’t changed my mind.

Ken Carroll

By: Change Agency - Advocating a better education system for the 21st Century. » links for 2007-11-28

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:19:20 +0000

[...] Thoughts about educational change inspired by videos and blog conversations » Moving at the Speed o… Wesley’s thoughts on things that need to change in our current educational system. (tags: learning schools school-improvement) [...]

By: Wesley Fryer

Wesley Fryer — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:13:14 +0000

Tammy I think you are right: We have teachers who will be and are “reactionary” and struggle against the change / to maintain the status quo, and those who will be “dynamists” and seek to leverage the opportunities available in a changing environment. Virginia Postrel discussed these two groups in her 1989 book “The Future and Its Enemies.” I think this is a helpful lens to use when considering cultural changes in different contexts. You are right, people will either support the traditional paradigm or struggle to move beyond it. This connects to what Alan Kay says are those who strive to predict the future either by INVENTING it or PREVENTING it.

By: Tammy Stephens

Tammy Stephens — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:33:12 +0000

Ubiquitous digital tool use:
Our educational system needs an upgrade in “headware” as well as “hardware,” and the former is much more difficult to achieve than the latter.

The majority of communication in today’s classrooms is linear in nature (i.e. lecture, note taking, question/answering). So what happens when we give students access to one of the most powerful communication, social networking devices in the history of the world? Use of the tool competes with the traditional role of teacher as expert or disseminator of information. Traditional teaching methods and ubiquitous digital tool use cannot co-exist in the same environment. Either teachers will resist and marginalize their use or they will evolve evolve into a new role as a facilitator, co-learner, collaborator and designer of constructivist learning experiences in the classroom.

By: Jim Walker

Jim Walker — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:02:43 +0000

As a special ed teacher I feel lucky because we have to write an IEP for each student that lays out a learning plan for each student. We are to treat each student as a unique learner with defined strengths and weaknesses. In addition to the usual report card a written report of the students progress is developed each quarter.
Maybe a first step in a real educational reform is to get rid of the report card. It is as artificial as a discrete curriculum for each subject. I know why report cards are still popular, they are easy to generate and give the parents, politicians, and school leaders something to easily look at gage progress. Setting goals and objectives that have to be measured and reported on each quarter is very time consuming and can not be easily turned into a spreadsheet.

By: Dennis Harter

Dennis Harter — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:21:36 +0000

I posted on the EXACT same quote when I first came across this discussion. It is why students need us.

The video also struck me as important in that it was inspiring conversation and discussion about what we teach, why it’s relevant (or why it isn’t) and what it is our students want and need (not always the same).

These conversations can’t be a bad thing for education. And whether Gary thinks that the video is getting overly-hyped as gospel misses the fact that it is prompting people to conversations about learning.

Should they have had those conversations without seeing a video like this…sure…but were they…I think not…or at least not enough.