I've been doing a lot of reading this summer and have been a complete sponge, soaking up information that is relevant to the career I have chosen. There are so many fantastic ideas out there from folks in education and I am humbled to be on the same team as them.
Recently, I read a piece from Naveen Jain in Forbes that really got me thinking about the future of education. In the piece Rethinking Education: Why our Education System Is Ripe For Disruption, one particular line got me thinking. Jain states, "Our education system is not broken, it has just become obsolete."
It is a bitter pill to swallow when the career you have chosen is described by someone as being obsolete. How is possible that the single most important institution in this country has gone the way of VCRs and VHS tapes, dial-up internet, movie rental stores, paper maps, and public payphones? Say it ain't so? I wish that I could, but I cannot. The truth of the matter is that folks in education, myself included, are in a rut and we need to get out of it, quickly.
Below are some ideas of how we can do this and I would welcome any thoughts you have on the matter. The cool thing about this topic is that regardless of whether you are in the field of education or not, you have wonderfully valid insight because you attended school and you know what you wish you would have learned.
HOMEWORK IS PRACTICE AND SHOULD NOT BE GRADED
In my classroom years, I was guilty of assigning homework and then downgrading students for not doing it. My rational for this was that I was teaching students to be responsible and that if they were going to be successful in the "real world" they needed to get their work done when it was due. I still believe that deadlines are extremely important and that the "real world" will have plenty of of them in place. I don't, however, think homework is the means to accomplish this goal. Homework is all about PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE and giving students and opportunity to fail and learn without it negatively impacting their grade. Homework should be relevant to students and not seen as just busy work. The next question that inevitably comes from a lot of people is, "If you don't grade homework and students then bomb an assessment, how are they going to pass the class? My principal tracks how many students fail and I don't want to get in hot water over this." My response to this is let the students take another test after they have demonstrated through their homework that they know the content. If students choose not to do this, then the natural consequence is failure. Additionally, I don't think there should be a minimum on the number of retakes that a student should get. If the goal is have students learn material, should it really matter how long it takes?
ENGAGEMENT IS EVERYTHING
How many jobs do you know about that require you to sit at a desk and listen to someone else talk for the majority of the day and take copious notes. I can only think of one and that is a court reporter. I would challenge any one who reads this to make a list of their all time favorite projects they did in school and then analyze the main reasons they are so vivid in your memory. What I think you will find is that they were engaging and relevant to your specific interests. You were passionate about the project and that is why it is still with you today. Schools need to do a better job of identifying students' passions and then make the curriculum relevant to each and every child. We need to start listening to our students' expectations of what they want to get out of school. If you haven't read the book Leaving to Learn, I highly recommend it because it offers some wonderful insights on how to make schools work better.
RIGOR AND RELEVANCE MAKES BETTER STUDENTS
Don't let them kid you, but students crave rigor and relevance. They want to be challenged. Unfortunately, most schools try to do this in silos. Schools have an awesome opportunity to connect with the community around them and do something special. How many times have you heard someone say, "I am terrible at (enter a specific subject here). I bombed my (enter high school course here) class in high school and really suck at it!" As a high school principal, I hear this on a daily basis from multiple students. What is crazy is that when I see these students in an area they are interested in, they demonstrate so many skills that they are phenomenal at, but they don't even know it. For example, I worked extensively with a young man last year that wants to become a diesel mechanic when he graduates from high school. Looking over his grades, I saw that he was failing both his math class and his English class (primarily because he wasn't turning in his homework--See above). When I saw him in his autos class when he was working on a car, he was deciphering a manual on the vehicle's engine and was calibrating a number of different components on the engine using math and reasoning skills. This same kid who can't figure it out in his math and English classes is blowing the top off the skills in an autos class where he is totally engaged.
The fact of the matter is that students are extremely bright in a lot of different areas, but because coursework is not relevant to their specific interests, they feel as if they are terrible at it. It is the self-fulfilling prophecy at its best. If you tell yourself that you are terrible at something often enough, you start believing it. We need teachers to start working together to find what makes kids tick and designing our curriculum around them. We don't need to sacrifice the standards we are required to teach, we just need to change how students apply the standards to their life.
STANDARDIZED TESTING NEEDS TO CHANGE IMMENSELY
I am not a huge fan of state assessments in their present form. They do not reflect what a child has learned nor do they take in to consideration multiple ways that children can demonstrate what they have learned. Furthermore, a test that can only be taken once and labels a student a failure is not okay with me.
Don't get me wrong, assessment of student learning is imperative, but it needs to be done in a manner that we can show student growth. A child who has a disability, a poor home life, or is a poor test taker might never be deemed "proficient" on a state test, but that doesn't mean that child should be labeled as a failure. Additionally, the school that is trying to fill in the holes and help this child should not be labeled as a failure either.
Let's have students start creating e-portfolios that tell their "school story." Let them decide how they want their learning to be demonstrated. We might be surprised at what they come up with.
COLLEGE NEEDS TO BE VIEWED THROUGH A LARGER LENS
Not everyone is going to go to a 4-year university and they shouldn't be expected to if it isn't in the cards. What should be expected is ALL students will get some sort of college, whether it be a university, trade school, community college, or credentials. Many jobs these days don't require the 4-year university degree, but yet our students feel they have to go this route. We need to do a better job of educating our students about their options and what they need for the careers they are choosing.
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