Is there anything wrong with Sacred Cows? Well it depends. Maybe yes and maybe no. We need to question if our Sacred Cows are useful, relevant, and correct for the needs of the educational system. If they have outlived their usefulness then those “cows” need to be questioned. According to the authors of Death To All Sacred Cows: How successful business people put the old rules out to pasture, if education only looks to the past, it is putting itself at risk because schools or districts that, “...only look to the past to guide their futures can be doomed to failure. In a rapidly changing world, anything dated tends to be dangerous.”
“If the world was a stagnant, predictable place, then steadfast rules would be okay. They would guide us and keep everyone honest. But the world in which we live changes constantly.”
Change is the new normal.
“If we don’t question why we do things the way we do, we’ll never be able to do them better. If we resist new approaches, we’ll be stuck with more of the same all the time.”
When was the last time you questioned why you were doing what you were doing?
by TerData
So here is the Education Innovation list of Sacred Cows.
Sacred Cows Of Education
• All students can learn at high levels of achievement
• Teaching takes place at a school
• Teaching takes place in the classroom
• Students should sit at a desk
• Students learn from teachers
• Students need to learn what teachers are teaching
• The government knows what students should know
• The government knows best what teachers need to know
• The best way to measure learning is to give a test
• The best way to show what you know is to take a test
• Books are necessary
• Paper is necessary
• Homework is necessary
• Students should not have cell phones
• Always do what is best for students
• Research based instructional practices
• Data based decision making
• Principals should be “instructional leaders”
• Private schools, charter schools, and home-schools are competition.
• Schools don’t have enough money
• Unions are good for teachers
• Unions are good for students
• Smaller class sizes are better
• Howard Gardner is always right
• Robert Marzano is always right
• The DuFours are always right
• There is nothing you can do about bad teachers
• Standardized test scores matter, and they matter a lot
• Teachers are better when they work as team or a Professional Learning Community
• The more experience a teacher has the better they are at teaching
• Teachers should not be compared to other teachers
• Schools should not be compared to other schools
• Mistakes are bad.
• Parents are always right
• Parents don’t understand
• Put the most resources toward the lowest students
• Technology is not important for learning
Some of these "cows" should stay "sacred" and some of these "cows" need to be put out to pasture.
What Sacred Cows would you add?
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