From the get go, Will Richardson grabs readers by the face in the first sentence of the book, “here’s the thesis of the book in tweet-ready form: The world has changed. Knowledge is everywhere. Teachers must become master learners instead of master knowers” (5). I think this is a very good description of the shift in education (and tweet-ready form?! Oh Richardson…). Teachers are no longer the vessel for information, they are the facilitator. I don’t believe I became aware of my learning until college. Considering I began schooling at 4 (Preschool counts right?) and entered college at 17, there was a lot of absent minded learning happening. I have toured some “progressive” schools in the area and my first thought is always, Can I redo elementary school and attend a school like this?
Richardson addresses 5 antiquated assumptions about education and refutes all of them with either research or pure logic. The one assumption I would like to reflect on is the third, “An education needs to be organized, standardized, and controlled by an institution.” Richardson boldly claims that schools began putting students into separate subjects, content specific classes, and standardized assessments because it was easy to monitor, not because it was in students’ best interest. I see the standards getting a lot of flack from both non-educators and educators alike. Now there is no denying the phrase “Common Core” has a negative stigma attached to it. The mere utterance of it will elicit a variety of responses. I think teachers view the standards as these constraining shackles that suck the wind from your sails. I prefer to look at them like clouds. Students will soar in different directions because not everyone flies with the same wings. Some are faster, some are slower, some are too scared to take flight. As teachers, you guide the students through each cloud, but they are not enclosures. You can fly through a cloud to get where you’re going. There may be obstacles. Some clouds look scarier than others and you may have to adapt to pass through. It is all about your planning. Make the standards work for you, don’t work for the standards. One question popped up while I was reading the first third of the book and I would love to hear different perspectives on it. Why are only public schools under scrutiny? I agree with Richardson when he states education needs to be fluid to keep up with technological advances but why just primary and secondary education? Colleges still have classes where professors stand in front of a gallery of 200 students and lecture for 2 hours. They have majors that are subject specific and according to Richardson, “In a recent Gallup poll, only 11 percent of business leaders strongly agreed that graduates have the necessary skills and competencies to succeed in the workplace” (8). If high schools are evolving to meet the changing job market, wouldn’t 4 years spent in an equally antiquated educational model spurn the progress being made?
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AuthorDevout book worm. Archives
May 2016
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