Posted at 08:33 PM in 21st Century Education, Insight | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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I have been read and enjoyed a great book called Death To All Sacred Cows by David Bernstein, Beau Fraser, and Bill Schwab of The Gate Worldwide. It has nothing to do with education, so, of course, I was instantly attracted to it.
In their chapter titled The Sales Force Makes The Sale, they write about the "sacred cow" that it is a great sales force that sells the product.
The authors butcher this sacred cow.
“When great ideas get turned into great products, a strong Sales Force is essential. They can make the difference between never quite catching on and mega-success. But when lousy ideas get turned into lousy products, even the greatest Sales Force on Earth can’t help you.”
What’s this got to do with education you ask? I am glad you asked?
When great lesson planning gets translated into great lessons, a strong teacher is essential. They can make the difference between the student never quite getting it and the lesson being a great success. But when lousy lessons planning gets translated into lousy lessons, even the greatest teacher can’t help you. The lesson is the product, and a great product needs a great sales person, in this case a teacher, to make it a huge success. It's a partnership of well crafted lessons and instructional sequences, and the sales force, the teacher that makes it all go.
But, they also include the other famous "sacred cow" that the product should sell itself.
How does this sad cow meet its end?
“In most instances, consumers do not buy products. They buy benefits. A product is more than the sum of its parts. It needs to solve problems, create opportunities, makes us feel better about ourselves and the world around us. These benefits are not usually obvious to the naked eye.”
In most instances student do not just accept they need to learn what the teacher is teaching. They learn because of the benefits to them. A great lesson is more than the sum of its parts. It needs to investigate, innovate, imagine, explore, experiment, examine, collaborate, create, and connect to the students’ lives. These benefits are not usually obvious to the naked eye, but it is up to the teacher to demonstrate these benefits. You need a great product and a great sales force.
“…the customer still needs to know why they should want what you’re selling. They need to be told what it will do for them.”
Students still need to know why they should want to learn what your teaching. They need to be told, explained, and demonstrated what it will do for them.
“Charles Revson [Founder of Revlon cosmetics] once said, “In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the drugstore, we sell hope”
Education Innovation once said, “At our desks we make standards based data driven lessons. In front of the students, we ‘sell’ hope.” That is Education Innovation
How good is your sales force? How good is your product?
Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Books, Disruptive & Transformational Ideas, Economics & Business, Marketing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Allow me to dream and muse for a moment. Allow me to dream of a blending, a fusion of education and design. Allow me to imagine, just for a moment, a new design all together different from what we know.
A Design that enhances learning. A Design that creates a learning environment.
An environment that makes learning easier, effective, comfortable, memorable, and attainable.A design that is as memorable as it is functional.A design that is customizable, personalized, mashable, networked, and communal.
A design that allows for inspiration to come from outside of what we know. The Medici Effect. Borrowing Brilliance.Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Design, Disruptive & Transformational Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Trust. We all want it, but do we all give it? It is a crucial issue for teachers and administrators.
Chapter 3 of the book The Collaborative Administrator is titled “Trust: The Secret Ingredient to Successful Shared Leadership.”
Trust is a key to school success.
“What then should a principal do to lay a foundation of trust in a school?”
Further the authors believe the administrator should…
Trust is the first step on a journey to successful schools, the first step of a TRIP that all schools and Professional Learning Communities must make.
Dov Seidman, author of HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business (and in Life) came up with the acronym T.R.I.P.
Trust
“Trusting in a sense, means giving something away and ceding power to others, an essential step in achieving the outward focus needed in a hyperconnected world. Trust empowers others, but because it is a virtue.”
In the classroom that means taking the first step to give away our perception of control and to trust the students and teachers. As an administrator, you must give power away to others to develop trust in them and their trust in you.
Risk
If there is no trust, “We
drive slower, act cautiously, shrink our circle of friends and
associates, and generally default more conservative impulses. When
there is trust in the room, however, all of these tendencies are
reversed. We are secure and so can act boldly. We feel free to invent
new process…”
We experiment and try new things. Imagine how a student would feel if he or she was secure enough to try new things, stretch themselves, and take a risk without fear of failure. Imagine if your teachers felt they could take risks that might need to new ways of better meeting the needs of students. Teachers who feel trusted will be more likely to innovate and create and share better ideas and practices.
Innovation
“In a trusting environment, everyone feels emboldened to take more risks. They challenge the system more, they solve problems, and they don’t stay in small boxes afraid to venture into new territory for fear of criticism (by bosses or colleagues). Innovation flows from this creative spirit.”
In a trusting environment teachers would be more open to teaching a new grade or teaching a new class. With trust, a teacher will be more open to sharing new ideas and insight with colleagues. Administrators, if you felt more trust, you would be more willing to experiment with bold programs. Teachers and administrators innovating new ideas without fear of criticism could generate great benefits for students.
Progress
“What happens when you innovate? You create progress.”
Progress is not just limited to higher test scores. Progress extends to personal progress.
“We go on TRIPs because we want to accomplish big things. We go on TRIPs because we want to solve real problems and because we want to create lasting value.”
We go on TRIPs because helping build minds and making a difference is why we got into education in the first place. We go on TRIPs to make an impact.
T “The T stands for
transparency, which creates trust. Interpersonal transparency is a
necessary power to thrive in a connected world, and not coincidentally,
it creates trust."
When the teachers you work with can see that you are being open and transparent with your ideas, lessons, plans, etc. then they develop trust in you. For a department or grade level to be successful, a condition of transparency must exist. If others think you are hiding something, then they are not going to share what they know. We have all seen or know teachers who are hoarders of ideas. We have all seen and know teachers who are territorial about ideas, or committees, or duties, etc. When these teachers are not transparent, then the others they work begin to feel they need to close up and keep their ideas or territories. We become little islands or silos, each trying to keep their ideas to themselves in hope that they will be perceived as a, “great teacher.” Meanwhile all the kids at the school suffer from this lack of transparency. We must open up and share our best practices and ideas. All of the students deserve the best, not just the ones in my class.
R The R stands for Reputation
Do you know what your reputation is? It may not be what you think. Perception is reality, as they say, so your reputation is largely going to be determined by the perception of those you teach and work with. It may not be what you intended it to be, but it is what others think it is.
I The I stands for Instinct
When there is trust, this can unleash you instinct. “When you are in a trust-filled situation, these synapses are strong. The various centers of your brain communicate seamlessly and rapidly, and you can then make split-second decisions that often pay off.”
Wouldn’t it be easier if you worked and taught in a situation that allowed you to make quick decision without second-guessing yourself due to lack of trust in your students, your co-workers, or your principal. To work in an environment of trust will allow you to make decision in the best interest of the students each and every time without going through all the machinations that those who work where there is no trust will likely go through.
However, I took the liberty of adding another meaning to the I. I The I can also stand for Individual.
We in education are being told exactly what to teach, when to teach, and how to teach. There must be room for the individual talents and ideas of each teacher or administrator. In an environment of trust, each individual teacher or administrator can offer his or her unique ideas and viewpoints.
P The P stands for perennial prosperity.
Prosperity can mean performance. Prosperity can be translated to mean results. Trust brings results. Results from the teachers and administrators, which, in the end, translates to results from the students and the school. Performance increases steadily in the direction of great results.
Trust is key. We need to have trust. I get so tired of people who want to just talk about what has to be done without ever spending to reflect on the HOW it will be done. If we don’t figure out the HOWs then the “whats” won’t be accomplished. Is it worth our time as teachers and administrators to take some time to get our HOWs right?
So how do we get a TRIP going? You figure out where you are, where you want to go, and most importantly, you listen to each other. Our students are counting on us to get going on this TRIP.
Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Innovation, Leadership | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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So, what do you get when you combine a book on youth culture, a futurist, Thomas Edision, Disco, pharmaceuticals, Hollywood, the iPod, and school research reports? Let put in them in the Education Innovation Blender a take a look.
Is it piracy and plagiarism, or is it creativity and innovation? Which do you suppose we should be teaching our students to do? Two previous posts have inspired this discussion.
Plagiarism Is A Good Thing?
We live in an age where anybody can produce, mix, or re-purpose information and ideas.
When we pirate information and ideas, we may just be innovating new ideas and creating new ways of doing things.
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and musicians viewed it as piracy. He was pirating their music, recording it, and selling it. They feared the end of live performances, instead an entire industry was born, the music industry.
MP3 players existed prior to the iPod, but the iPod pirated that technology and created it’s own phenomena. Music lovers, wanting to share music with each other without paying, created digital music sites like Napster. They were pirating their way around and outside of what the music industry existed to do. Steve Jobs figured out that to beat the pirates he had to compete with them and built iTunes. The pirates ideas had become mainstream and put old music sellers out of business. It is piracy or innovation? Is it plagiarism or creativity?
The iPod itself is just a combination of pre-existing ideas; the battery, operating system, hard drive, screen, MP3 technology, etc.
Reggae, Disco, and Hip-hop music demonstrate that we can repurpose music into something new. The pirate old songs and create new and innovative versions. These versions become so popular that they create entirely new music genres. It is piracy or creativity?
Moviemakers, not wanting to pay high fees in New York pirates their way around the system by setting up studios in California. Today we call it Hollywood.
India reverse engineers drugs for the poor pirating what they themselves could not afford to do. Drug companies, sensing the good public relations they can benefit from, begin selling their drugs at huge discounts an in some cases giving them away. They respond to the pirates by creating an entirely new approach of serving the poor of the world. Piracy or creativity?
Teachers pirate great lesson plans and instructional ideas from other teacher all the time. It helps them to be more effective and learn new ways of instructing their students.
So, is piracy and plagiarism just another way of being creative and innovative? Are they a source of new ideas, methods, and models? Are there links to each other or are they mutually exclusive?
A senior business executive needing the most current research on a company or economic trend asks his junior executive to find the best and most current information. The junior executive doesn’t start his or her own research project, rather he or she Googles the information looking for the most current research on the topic that has already been done by the most respected and knowledgeable experts. He or she copies it, rips it, digitizes it, scans it, re-purposes it, integrates it, synthesizes it, and puts into a usable document to give the senior executive. This is what we call good research.
In the classroom we call plagiarism. So, it is plagiarism or creativity?
Most of the examples I shared, which come from Matt Mason, would be examples of plagiarism and cheating if they happened inside a classroom.
Doesn't there seem to be a disconnect from what we do in the classroom and what the real world expects of them? I know most of you are saying it's about the process. But if that is true, then why do we spend so much time evaluating and grading the result?
If it really is about process then Pat Dixon has an idea;
Catalytic Questions:
In what ways could you re-purpose your research report assignments to develop real world skills that focus on the process, the correctness, the authoritativeness, and uniqueness of synthesis?
What might that look like in your classroom or school?
How does your current understanding of technology, business, and innovation impact your thoughts?
How might your students be better served with the assignments they work on?
In what ways have you been successful in the past in adjusting assignments to meet the changing needs of the students and the world they live in? How might you draw upon that experience?
In what ways does the discussion of plagiarism and pirating vs. creativity and innovation force you to think in new ways?
What are the underlying principles at work in this discussion and how does it/they impact your approach to education?
What if you were to reverse the process and have students examine existing reports and determine how well they meet the criteria for a good research report?
Which assignments could you substitute with these new ideas?
Recommended Reading:
Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Disruptive & Transformational Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Do your assumptions about what education should be leave you with a lack of alternatives?
One of the reasons why many people, including myself, love books like Freakonomics, Super Freakonomics, Predictably Irrational, or The Economic Naturalist is that is takes our assumptions about the world around us and stands them on their head. When what we assumed about our world is discovered to be incorrect, we must develop alternatives in our thinking and our approach to the world around us.
We have created a model of education based on our assumptions about what education is. So let's consider our educational model.
As part of the book The Organization Of The Future, James O’ Toole contributed an essay titled “Free To Choose: How American Managers Can Create Globally Competitive Workplaces” In his essay he describes 3 “Emerging Employer Models.” He describes them as follows:
Low-Cost Companies
Global-Competitor Companies
High-Involvement Companies
O’ Toole advocates for the High-Involvement Company as the model of the future.
According to James O’ Toole,
the most successful companies now and of the future will be those that
choose to address the deepest needs of their employees.
• Financial resources and security
• Meaningful work that offers the opportunity for human development
• Supportive social relationships
So, to which model would the current system of education belong?
Does the current education model meet the 3 deepest needs of it's employees?
Is education, as a governmental organization, so unique that none of the models described above apply? Is it a hybrid of one, two, or all of them?
It is our assumptions about what education is, where and when learning and teaching takes place, and how education, school districts, and school sites should be organized that control the current organizational face of education. We have built what we assumed is the best organization and model for delivery of instruction to a population.
What, however, if those
assumptions are wrong?
Have you ever considered the fact that the assumptions you make about what education is and what is should be are wrong?
As O’Toole puts it, “Remember,
it was once widely assumed that no airline could trust its employees to
decide how best to serve customers—until Southwest did. It one was
assumed that no company in the discount retail industry could succeed
while paying its employees decent salaries and offering them full
benefits—until Costco did. It was assumed that poorly educated
blue-collar workers in old-line manufacturing firms could not be taught
managerial accounting and then left to be self-managing—until SRC
Holdings did. Once the conventional wisdom was that employees must be
closely supervised and governed by rules—until W.L. Gore proved
otherwise. And it was assumed that the first thing a company must do in
a financial crisis is to lay off workers—until Xilinx discovered
alternatives.”
Are there alternatives to our current model?
Does education have alternatives? Are
educational leaders willing to honestly explore them? Will teachers, union
leaders, parents, and politicians allow for different assumptions to be pursued? William A. Foster said, “Quality
is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention,
sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it
represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” Is what we have built the "wise choice of many alternatives", or is it simply what we have ended up with?
Archibald MacLeish once said, "What is freedom? Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for oneself the alternatives of choice." Wil education and those in it ever have the freedom to develop and create alternatives to the current model. Will we be free to pursue the The High-Involvement Company or the Global-Competitor Company, as described by O' Toole, or a hybrid of the two, or even something not yet discovered?
As O’ Toole says, “The statement ‘I have no alternative’ is one of the surest indicators of leadership failure.”
Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Books, Imagination, Open Education & Learning, Thinking | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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“Each step on the ladder represents a group of consumers more involved in the groundswell than the previous steps. To join the group on a step, a consumer need only participate in one of the listed activities at least monthly.”
I believe that each rung of the Social Technographic ladder presents a unique literacy challenge for our students.
As an educator you know the standards, the curriculum, and the methods to bring about literacy. If technology is not part of that you are missing a major component of what our students will need in the coming years. Our students need to be able to climb the "ladder" and it is your job to make sure they get those opportunities.
Top Rung: Creators
These
are the people who, at least once a month, publish a blog, put an
article online, maintain a website, or upload music or videos. In the
United States, about 18% of us on are the top rung or creators.
The percentage is only going to go up. So, what are you doing to prepare your students to be creators? How are you preparing your students to occupy the “top rung” of the Social Technographics ladder?
If you think about it, this is a question of literacy. For example, here are the writing standards for 6th grade in California:
Narrative
write narratives, that(1) establish and develop plot and setting, and choose a point of view that is appropriate to stories
(2) include sensory details and concrete language to develop plot and character
(3) use a range of narrative strategies (e.g., dialogue, suspense)
Expository
Write expository compositions (e.g., description, explanation, comparison and contrast, and/or problem/solution) that
(1) state the thesis or purpose
(2) explain the situation
(3) follow an organizational pattern appropriate to the type of composition (e.g., if problem/solution, then paired)
(4) offer persuasive evidence for the validity of the description, proposed solutions, etc.
Research Reports
Write research reports that
(1) pose relevant questions narrow enough to be thoroughly covered
(2)
support the main idea(s) with facts, details, examples, and
explanations from multiple authoritative sources (e.g., speakers,
periodicals, on-line information searches)
(3) use a bibliography
Persuasive
2.5. write persuasive compositions (or letters for grade 5) that
(1) state a clear position in support of a proposition or proposal
(2)
support the position with organized and relevant evidence; and (3)
anticipate and address reader concerns and counter-arguments
The standards seem to say that we want students to be creators. The question I have is; are we preparing our students to occupy the top rung in the groundswell. Remember, the groundswell is: “A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.”
In other words, the groundswell is what is taking place in this new ecosystem called the web where any person, in any place, can be a producer of media. Or, as Clay Shirky says, every person is a one-man media outlet.
So why only 18% participation? Obviously this is an optional activity. Nobody has to be a creator. In our classrooms we require that our students be creators. We want all of our students on the top rung. We ask that our students create stories, research reports, projects, and narratives. We are teaching the next generation to succeed in this new online ecosystem. The standards seem to suggest we have the right intentions, but do those standards prepare our students for life in the groundswell? I think it depends on the teacher. The greater the teacher's understanding of the power of the groundswell in the online ecosystem, the better the assignments will utilize technology as part of learning and mastering the standards.
The next rung down: Critics
Critics react to what has been created. This is similar to the responding to literature standard.
Response to Literature
Write responses to literature that
(1) develop an interpretation which exhibits careful reading, understanding and insight
(2) organize the interpretation around several clear ideas, premises, or images
(3) develop and justify the interpretation through sustained use of examples and textual evidence
Again, the question becomes, are we properly preparing our students for being a critic in the groundswell?
When I was a student, I was never allowed to comment on what other students wrote. Even in college, my job was to create. The only opportunities I had to be a critic was in writing a book report. Most of us are simply not used to commenting on blogs. We were not trained to do it as students and we had so few opportunities in our academic lives to practice it. But, our students are growing up in the online ecosystem that allows them to comment and critique nearly everything. They can comment on a song, a picture, a video, place a comment on a blog, put a book review on Amazon, or review a product on CNET.
Their world is the world of the critic. Are we as educators equipping them to succeed in this world? Are we preparing them for life on the second rung? What opportunities do your students have to critique what others have created?
The next rung down: Collectors
Collector collect RSS feeds, save website to Del.icio.us, vote for sites on Digg, and accumulate all forms of created digital media from the online world.
So, what standards address that? How are we preparing our students to be effective collectors of information? What opportunities do our students get to practice the art of selective information collection? How do our students learn to filter information for their select needs? How are we preparing our students to be literate collectors?
The next rung down: Joiners
Members
of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orcut, etc. are all joiners. These are
the people who maintain profiles on social networking sites. My guess
is that most of our students are far ahead of most of their teachers in
this aspect. But, how can we teach our students the skills necessary to
properly maintain these sites for optimal effect and leverage their
power to further themselves via networking?
Our students are natural collaborators and net-workers, but how are we making them literate in the power of networks?
The next rung down: Spectators
Spectators
consume what the rest produce. This is the largest part of the
groundswell. This is about making choices. What they choose to consume
can enhance our students’ education. So, our students need to make
choices that will enhance them as people, as students, as informed
citizens, etc. Of course kids will always choose the strange and
offbeat, but we can equip them to understand what sorts of media are
important for them to consume. What opportunities are your students
getting to be selective literate spectators?
The bottom rung: Inactives
These
are the people who are not impacted by the groundswell at all. For our
students, it might those students who have no access to technology and
the web. I still meet students and parents who have no web access. If
the school isn’t providing it, and they have no access at home, when
are these students given chances to move from inactive to spectator, to
joiner, to collector, to critic, or to creator? We need to think about how we
can provide opportunities and resources for them to climb the Social
Technographic ladder. It is a literacy issue for life in the 21st
century.
Catalytic Questions
In what way is your leadership preparing your school and your students for the literacy of technology?
Is your personal leadership and catalyst or hurdle in the implementation of technologies that will provide opportunities for technology literacy?
In what ways do our current literacy standards meet or fall short of the issues and challenges faced by our students at each rung of the Social Technographic ladder?
In what way can we better prepare our students to be literate creators of information?
How might this look in a classroom?
In what ways can we provide opportunities for our students to be literate critics of created information?
In what ways can we prepare our students to be literate collectors of information?
What might this look like in the classroom?
How might we prepare our students to leverage the power of networks?
In what ways could we prepare our students to make literate choices about the networks they join and the information they place on those networks?
In what was are we preparing our students to be literate spectators of information?
How might we better equip our students to make excellent choices in the information they consume each day?
In what ways can we provide resources or tools to move the non-participating Inactive up the Social Technographic ladder?
Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Books, Disruptive & Transformational Ideas, Education Technology, Leadership, Literacy and Learning, Teaching | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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How does an organization measure success? One measure, or should I say three, is the Triple Bottom Line. According to Wikipedia,
“The phrase was coined by John Elkington, co-founder of the business consultancy SustainAbility in 1994. It was later expanded and articulated in his 1998 book Cannibals with Forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business.
The concept of TBL demands that a company's responsibility be to 'stakeholders' rather than shareholders. In this case, 'stakeholders' refers to anyone who is influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the actions of the firm. According to the stakeholder theory, the business entity should be used as a vehicle for coordinating stakeholder interests, instead of maximizing shareholder (owner) profit.”
Leadership guru Ken Blanchard defines the triple bottom line are the three most important factors of performance. Blanchard says, “It recognizes that great companies are the provider of choice, the employer of choice, and the investment of choice.”
So I began to wonder if the TBL could apply to education. A school district’s TBL might be something like…
School District XYZ is the school district of choice and its schools are the school of choice for the parents of this community.
Now, we know that public schools are the only choice for most parents, but if they had the choice, would your schools be the school of choice for parents? This isn’t a question designed to open up the debate about school choice, but rather a question to get us thinking about our school and the parent’s perceptions of our schools. After all, they are the clients we are trying to serve.
School District XYZ is the school district of choice for both experienced and new teachers.
Most teachers, especially in Southern California are just happy to have a job, but if the job market reversed and put districts and schools in the role of recruiting teachers, would those teachers choose you? What can you offer that makes a difference?
School District XYZ is the school district of performance and results.
Results, usually defined by metrics such as state test scores, are measure of performance that tells “stake holders”- local parents and citizens- that students are learning and improving. Investments in the district are being used effectively to meet student needs.
The TBL, as defined here, is just an opening into the discussion of the various factors and variables that would impact each of the three. However, it is a valuable place to begin and forces those of us in education to look at education from a different perspective and ask some tough questions of ourselves, which, is always a good thing.
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Robert Alan Black Ph.D. lists 32 Traits of Creative People.
I wonder if these might not make an interesting framework for a report card. Call it the report of the future, or Report Card 2.0.
Imagine the curriculum that would have to be created to generate evidence of the student's proficiency of these 32 traits. Imagine the learning opportunities that students would need to be afforded to measure their proficiency in these traits.
It could completely change education in some very important and fundamental ways.
Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Creativity, Imagination, Innovation, Insight, Literacy and Learning | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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I rarely read books on Education. Why you ask? Several reasons. First, I feel my value to the education community is the different mindset or approach I bring to the field. If everybody is thinking the same thing or thinking in the same way, then innovation is less likely.
Second, as has been famously said, “Yesterday’s solutions won’t solve tomorrow’s problems.” Education is a reactive field. In other words, the world changes and education reacts to the change. The problem is, the change is usually decades after the cause. If you are only reading books on education, then you are usually reading about reacting to changes whose root cause occurred a decade prior.
I am currently reading (I am usually reading about 3 to 4 books at any given time) The Pentagon’s New Map by Thomas P. M. Barnett. This book seeks to explain his innovative approach to globalization that “combines security, economic, political, and cultural factors to do no less than predict and explain the nature of war and peace in the twenty-first century.” It is a fascinating book that forces one to challenge their thinking about the world and the role of the United States in it.
In chapter one, “New Rule Sets”, Barnett says,
“ Whether we realize it or not, America serves as the ideological wellspring for globalization. These united states still stand as its first concrete expression. We are the only country in the world purposely built around the ideals that animate globalization’s advance: freedom of choice, freedom of movement, freedom of expression. We are connectivity personified. Globalization is this country’s gift to history—the most perfectly flawed projection of the American Dream onto the global landscape. To deny our parentage of globalization is to deny our country’s profound role as world leader over the second half of the twentieth century. More important, to abandon globalization’s future to those violent forces hell-bent on keeping this world divided between the connected and disconnected is to admit that we no longer hold these truths to be self-evident: that all are equal, and that all desire life, liberty, and the chance to pursue happiness. In short, we the people needs to become we the planet.”
The question that arose in my mind was how do we in education prepare our students to take on this enormous responsibility. I say responsibility in the strongest of terms. If you read The Pentagon’s New Map you will gain a new appreciation for this country’s role and responsibility in creating and maintaining the positive globalization conditions and environment.
I have some thoughts. First, Tom Peters pointed out in his book Re-Imagine, that, “Distance is dead.” Technology has allowed us to connect with almost anyone anywhere in the world. Our students have embraced this concept with ease. But, education has not been so quick to pick up the technology baton and run with it. Technology is a major component in the global economy and the connectedness of the globalized world. We must prepare our students to use these tools. Computers should no longer be optional. They should be just as fundamental as paper, pencils, and textbooks. It should be a skill set that students (and teachers) be able to demonstrate. But that is obvious to most of us in the edu-blogosphere. Everyday there is more evidence of technology changing the very nature of how education is delivered. (See When The Education Bubble Goes...Pop!)
Second, if the United States embodies the values of globalization (freedom of choice, freedom of movement, freedom of expression), then it makes sense to inculcate those values in our students to ensure that they take them with them from school in the globalized world. This means a focus on civics, history, and learning the values that make this county so great. Also, students should understand what the global economy is and how it works. This calls for excellent economics and business classes.
Education today, attempts to control where students learn, what they learn, when they learn, and whom they learn from. Our educational system is the very definition of a centralized organization. The federal Department of Education tells the states what to do. State departments of education tell the counties what to do, counties tell the districts what to do, districts tell the principals, the principals tell the teachers, and the teachers tell the students. It is very structured, very systematic, very controlled, very rigid, and very closed. It in not exemplary of the values of globalization, yet purports to prepare students for their roles in the globalized world.
If you view the student as a leaders of their own learning, then they have the ability to decided for themselves the what, when, where, who, and how of their education. They must follow and meet certain expectations and norms, but they are not controlled by a centralized organization. A student is free to blend normal brick-and-mortar school, with home-school, with e-learning or virtual learning, occupational or trade schools, with other opportunities such as travel, trips to museums, internships, volunteering, etc. This blend is what I call the Open Model of Education. Maya Frost calls it "Bold School." (See The Global Student - Old School vs. Bold School)
But it also means allowing student to have opportunities to demonstrate freedom of choice, freedom of movement, and freedom of expression. I question whether our current system is providing these sorts of opportunities for students.
Good American citizens will make good global citizens. We need to inculcate those American values in our students and not be ashamed of them. Our students must have an understanding the global economy and America’s unique history, values, role, and responsibility around the globe.
Third, because we now live in the globalized world, our students will need to be adept with interacting with people from many different cultures. This means developing a skill set for understanding, appreciating, and valuing the cultures of others, while at the same time valuing their own unique set of American values. Our students must be able to navigate the multitude of cultures and develop positive relationships with people from across the globe.
This skill set has been referred to as Cultural Intelligence (CQ). Author of the book Leading With Cultural Intelligence, David LIvermore describes it the ability to demonstrate...
Drive—show the interest and confidence to adapt cross-culturally
Knowledge—understand how differences such as religion, family, education, legal, and economic influences affect the way people think and behave
Strategy—monitor, analyze, and adjust plans in unfamiliar cultural setting
Action—choose the right verbal and nonverbal behaviors, depending on context
Fortunately, America is so diverse. We must use this diversity as a strength and help our students learn from each other.
Fourth, our students will need to become adept at the art of collaboration. Globalization requires that people work with others. Students need to start practicing now by collaborating with fellow students. This is a great opportunity to introduce project base learning into our classrooms and schools. We must create opportunities for students to work together. Technology makes it possible for students to collaborate with students around the globe. I have seen some amazing projects with students in this country working with students from Africa and Australia. This reinforces my point about the need for appreciating other cultures. Collaboration as a skill set should be developed at every opportunity in our schools.
Finally, innovation and creativity skills must be taught and developed in our schools. With thousands of degrees being awarded in the coming decades, especially in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries, what is going to set our students apart? Creativity and innovation will. We need these skills taught in our classrooms.
In summary, a connected globalized world will require certain skill sets and knowledge. It is our responsibility to prepare our students to meet these challenges. I question whether, in this current system of high stakes testing and standardized curriculum, we are doing enough to prepare our students for life outside of the classroom walls.
Posted at 12:00 AM in 21st Century Education, Books, Disruptive & Transformational Ideas, Economics & Business, Globalization, Literacy and Learning, Open Education & Learning | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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