I get goose bumps every time I watch this video. I am not sure if it is the music or the message that Allen Watts delivers. After viewing it multiple times, I have come to the conclusion that it resonates so perfectly with my own thoughts on education reform. In fact, based on my recent trip to Boston, MA for the Pathways to Prosperity Conference, I am convinced that this video holds the key to how education should look in the future and how reform should look.
I previously wrote "A New Way of Thinking..." and I would like to revisit this concept now that I have had time to process all of the information I received from the conference. What I have come up with is an additional set of items to add to my previous post. Ultimately, we (educators) need to engage with one another in the dialogue to make this reform happen. Simply talking about it will not get us to our intended outcome. We must DO something to engage each other, our students, our parents, and our community. Without all of these parts working together, we will just be spinning our wheels.
STUDENTS NEED TO IDENTIFY WHAT THEY DESIRE TO DO
As Allen Watts states so eloquently in the video above, students need to identify what makes them itch and what they would like to do if money were no object. This, however, is where education has taken a different approach and ultimately is what is inherently wrong in most educational institutions. We do not push our students to identify what makes them tick. Instead, educators are bogged down with testing and federal mandates on performance improvement that the art of helping students discover what they want to do with their lives takes a back seat to covering content and doing well on a test. I have said it before but high schools have a thing or two to learn from their elementary and middle school counterparts. Students at these levels get to EXPLORE and are engaged in their learning. In most cases, this tends to stop when they get to the high school level. The fact of the matter is that this is precisely the time when they need to be more engaged because this is their last stop before the "real world" dowses them with a cold bucket of reality.
I don't know about you, but I sometimes feel that high school sucks the life out of students. I can say this with a pretty good sense of certainty because when I think back upon my own high school experience, I remember the social experiences (sports, activities, friends, etc.). What I don't remember are the connections between the course work I did and how it is relevant to my career today. Sure, I remember the teachers who had a major impact on my life because they were excellent role models, but I can't honestly say that connections were made. Therein lies the problem. Students in high schools need to be able to identify what they desire to do in the future and make connections between what they are learning and how it relevant to the adult world that they are about to enter.
EDUCATION SHOULD FOCUS ON COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS
I have contemplated this for a long time because if you ask most schools what their philosophy is, they will tell you that they want to prepare students for college and career readiness. Unfortunately, I think that what they mean to say is college OR career readiness, as if the two are mutually exclusive. In reality, the two concepts are the same in my mind. Are the skills that students need for college or career readiness really that different? If there are different skill sets for each, should one trump the other? I would make the case that they are one in the same and if we are not treating them as such, we are doing our students a major disservice and we are not achieving what we tell the public we are doing.
IT'S ALL ABOUT PROJECT-BASED AND WORKPLACE LEARNING
One of the most powerful things that schools can do to reform their practices is to get students involved in project-based learning and workplace learning. If you noticed, where were the teachers in the video above? They were being facilitators of learning rather than the traditional "sage on the stage." Students have information in the palm of their hands and can access it immediately in today's mobile technology. They don't need to be inundated with facts on an ongoing and consistent basis when they can simply do a Google Search in class and find it out themselves. Instead, students need to be able to identify a problem and work with others to help solve it. I challenge you to ask any one of your high school students about an opinion they have and how they would solve it (HINT: They are going to have one). Instead of lecturing students about the solutions, let them figure out how to do it. The lessons they learn from this process will create many more rewards for them than doing well on a test.
In regard to workplace learning, I think we have some work to do. Much like project-based learning, workplace learning is all about students DOING something. This requires a lot of partnerships with businesses in the community and a willingness by them to allow high school students to learn in their workplaces. Students need to be provided opportunities to explore different careers in the actual setting so they can get a feel for whether it truly is what they want to do.
SCHOOLS THAT ARE DOING THIS
Blackstone Valley Tech - Upton, MA
Francis Tuttle Technology Center - Oklahoma City, OK
Marysville Getchell High School Campus - Marysville, WA
My biggest takeaway from the Pathways To Prosperity Conference was that education reform is possible because the aforementioned schools are doing it and are seeing fantastic results on a consistent basis. There are, however, two very important things that resonated with me.
First, BUILDING leadership needs to be on board with this. Simply mandating it from the Federal, State, or District level will result in programs being implemented very poorly. If you are a building administrator who doesn't believe in the power of career and technical education and its relevance to College AND Career Readiness for ALL students, this reform is not for you.
Second, after hearing from the folks at Harvard on this issue, I think it is imperative that this type of education expands. Most of the people who presented at the Pathways To Prosperity conference used a magnet school/academy style approach where students had to apply to attend the school that offered this programming. My question is what happens to the students that don't apply? Are they not receiving the same traditional education that is trying to be reformed? My personal thought on this is that all schools in a District should embrace the reform for ALL students. This may not be feasible with school budgets the way they are, so I applaud these schools for at least starting the reform movement. Kudos to you all!
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