Friday, September 3, 2010
This is in response to a great article, 21st Century Skills: the Challenges Ahead, by Adrew J. Rotherham and Daniel Willignham.
While I completely agree with all that was articulated by the authors, I feel crucial a component is missing. Recently, I have been reading Breakthrough by Michael Fullan, Peter Hill and Carmel Crevola. Both groups discuss the same concerns and suggested solutions for revamping our current status quo.
We need more meaningful assessments, understandings of content and skill, and a delineation of practice and skill.
If breakthroughs, utilizing instruction that works, assessing for readiness and understanding, learning to learn, focused instruction unique to content learning, and other more high quality improvements need to be made, then why do things still look so much the same? The old adage, wherever I go, there I am, rings true as we stay stuck in the status quo. How much have we really changed since the establishment of the first compulsory school in the United States? Sure, we have become more cognizant of the science behind learning. We are aware of motivation and the importance of learner readiness. The breadth of knowledge and understanding is staggering. My argument is that we have not been able to build our systems within schools and districts to genuinely improve. The way in which we schedule classes, structure the day, all those logistics, actually confine us to a system designed to meet the demands of early America, not the 21st century. Articles such as this only add to frustration because we are reminded of the design constraints of a school.
We have to begin to explore ways to allow teachers more time to collaborate and grow professionally. Schedules need to be redesigned to meet the needs of the learner and the teacher, not just transportation, UIL or athletics. Is this radical? Is there time for such an extreme remedy?
Personally, I need to find answers to a few questions. How do other countries find the time for teachers to collaborate? Is there any wasted time during the school day? Our country is accustomed to the 8-3 schedule of schools that giving students a day off during the week so teachers can collaborate is often fraught with concerns from parents about finding a sitter.
Anyway, great article and good thought.
While I completely agree with all that was articulated by the authors, I feel crucial a component is missing. Recently, I have been reading Breakthrough by Michael Fullan, Peter Hill and Carmel Crevola. Both groups discuss the same concerns and suggested solutions for revamping our current status quo.
We need more meaningful assessments, understandings of content and skill, and a delineation of practice and skill.
If breakthroughs, utilizing instruction that works, assessing for readiness and understanding, learning to learn, focused instruction unique to content learning, and other more high quality improvements need to be made, then why do things still look so much the same? The old adage, wherever I go, there I am, rings true as we stay stuck in the status quo. How much have we really changed since the establishment of the first compulsory school in the United States? Sure, we have become more cognizant of the science behind learning. We are aware of motivation and the importance of learner readiness. The breadth of knowledge and understanding is staggering. My argument is that we have not been able to build our systems within schools and districts to genuinely improve. The way in which we schedule classes, structure the day, all those logistics, actually confine us to a system designed to meet the demands of early America, not the 21st century. Articles such as this only add to frustration because we are reminded of the design constraints of a school.
We have to begin to explore ways to allow teachers more time to collaborate and grow professionally. Schedules need to be redesigned to meet the needs of the learner and the teacher, not just transportation, UIL or athletics. Is this radical? Is there time for such an extreme remedy?
Personally, I need to find answers to a few questions. How do other countries find the time for teachers to collaborate? Is there any wasted time during the school day? Our country is accustomed to the 8-3 schedule of schools that giving students a day off during the week so teachers can collaborate is often fraught with concerns from parents about finding a sitter.
Anyway, great article and good thought.
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