Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

In Oklahoma Education, We Have to Stop Pretending

Scott McLeod (@mcleod) has thrown down the gauntlet: What are five things we need to stop pretending about in education?

Here’s my list. When it comes to education, we have to stop pretending…

  1. We are giving elementary students a grade in “science” when we haven’t provided any opportunities all year for them to conduct an experiment, measure something, collect any data, or form a hypothesis.
  2. We still live in the 20th century when communication, commerce, and learning opportunities were analog rather than digital.
  3. Coding is a skill students should wait till high high school or college before learning.
  4. That educational quality comes from mandated curricular pacing guides, benchmark tests, and a myopic focus on multiple-choice exams.
  5. That it’s acceptable for over 1000 K-12 classrooms in Oklahoma this year to be without a certified teacher.

Now I’m passing this torch/meme to some #OklaEd bloggers and change agents: I tag Michelle Waters (@watersenglish), Rick Cobb (@okeducation), Kevin Hime (@coach57), Erin Barnes (@elynnlll), and Rob Miller (@jmsprincipal).

Please join us. When it comes to education, what are 5 things that we have to stop pretending? Post on your blog, tag 5 others, and share using the #makeschooldifferent hashtag. Feel free to also put the URL of your post in the comments of Scott’s original post so others can find it!

Oklahoma Blogger by Wesley Fryer, on Flickr
Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  Wesley Fryer 

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One response to “In Oklahoma Education, We Have to Stop Pretending”

  1. Scott McLeod Avatar

    Great list, Wes. Thanks for participating. 1 and 5 particularly grabbed me!