I got my paper copy of Edutopia today - can't switch to a completely digital format yet!
So, there was this article about the Future School, http://edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1750&issue=feb_07.
I read it and liked it. And I think that Ed will like it especially, because it says, "just get the current public education system out of your head".
And I never thought of the American Public Education System as serving the purpose of producing factory workers. It seems very compelling.
I am excited about the idea of having nonteachers in the school, the idea of NOT having teaching as a life-long career, and that teachers should have a business world job at the same time. I personally would enjoy that, if the school system were more flexible (my current job notwithstanding).
I am not sure I like the round the clock schedule. I am a bit less confident there.
Anyway, would you please read the article and add your comments?
2 comments:
I am completely amazed that I can sit in my little isolated hidy-hole and come up with suggestions like, "School systems are broken because they can't change as fast as real life is changing" only to find that someone else has the exact same thoughts. In a way that is refreshing to know that I am not alone in some of my beliefs that others may deem really "out there". The realist out there will most likely dismiss the point of view presented in this article and that is a bit too sad because all of the dreamers out there need the concrete help the realists can provide. As the author of this article pointed out, he does not have the answers, but he does see the problem and would like to address it. When he was asked what changes should occur, the suggestions seem so radical only because we have done the same thing for almost two to three generations. It is almost in our genes that school is about that 12 year jail sentence where we hope we can shove stuff into their heads that will help them out. I have worked with some incredible teachers who, knowingly or unknowingly have hit their heads against a system that does not allow for their great teaching to progress. Some of these great teachers wither up and die out of the profession. Some continue to bang their head against the system hoping to make a dent, but that energy too dies out over time. So much is in the news with NCLB about saving our kids. I contend we need to save our education system by at least starting discussions of how we can do a radical recreation of the system that is more in line with the needs of today's youth and our adult society.
Remember Future Shock < http://www.amazon.com/Future-Shock-Alvin-Toffler/dp/0553277375 > by Alvin Toffler back in 1971? (Any old-timers here?) Last summer this digital immigrant re-read it while soaking up the warm summer breezes and sipping on a delightfully cold beverage. I was amazed how so much that Toffler had predicted had indeed come about.
Well . . . Toffler's still around and still prognosticating.
Ed's comment about " . . energy dying over time . . " certainly resonates with me personally. After 32 years in the classroom, I knew it was time for me to get out when the NCLB mentality increasingly poked its nose into my school and classroom. Certain irony that after retirement I was hired first as a local integrator and then as an eMINTS guy with NCLB IID money. Ha!
Jim
What do you think?
jim
http://region6.mainelearns.org/
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