Teaching Is Not About Knowing (Anymore)

The most fundamental thing to understand about teaching today is that it's not about you (the teacher). Old school thinking (organizing, being) was modeled after the management/labor paradigm. Classrooms resembled this paradigm as well, with teachers as the "knowledge owners" with obedient/compliant students "receiving" information.

I started writing about this 3 years ago-about the need to change how things are done in schools:

Schooling is sometimes described as something DONE to children. School often doesn’t seem a place where students are encouraged to learn at their own pace and in their own way-especially in the climate of standardized testing.

Teens (humans!) crave real connections. This is difficult to achieve given large class sizes and methodologies designed to teach “the class”. Many get left behind in this type of educational climate. Research (and now policy) is pointing to the fact that too many students are not “being attended to” in schools/classrooms. Scores of books have been written lately (many published by ASCD) that have as their premise the need to differentiate instruction to meet the needs/interests/learning styles of ALL students.

Technology has advanced so quickly in the last decade and the latest offerings are truly disruptive to the dominant paradigms in education (teacher as know-er, teacher as isolated 'expert', students as passive/obedient/quiet 'receivers')

SIGNS OF THE TIMES
Teachers are connecting and sharing information online. Whether they are isolated in their own buildings or not, they are breaking the cycle of isolation because they know that professional learning takes a community--even if that community exists only in cyberspace.

Teachers are recognizing that information is abundant and access to information is nearly instantaneous. That makes EVERYONE an expert and, frankly, should take the load off any (new?) teacher feeling the weight of "having to know everything". It's not about knowing. It's about pointing the way and providing the tools (for students to create, learn, succeed).

With the guidance of this new breed of teachers, students are breaking out of passive roles and becoming teachers themselves-which we know is the best way to learn anyway:

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

-Chinese proverb

Schooling, Education and The Way Forward

Image created by Andrew T. Garcia @berkshirecat

Seth Godin got me blogging about 4 years ago. Though his rants relate to marketing and business, what he had to say had relevance in my field: Education. His sentences were direct, pithy and always filled with a sense of urgency, in a 'take it or leave it' kind of way. Good stuff and he's still at it. If I'm stuck finding something to write about, a little reading of Godin will start the juices flowing. One thought leads to another and then I just HAVE to write. That would be my advice to anyone stuck trying to write anything (a blog post, a memo, a short story)-read something related to what you want to write about. Or, if you are interested in change and not in maintaining the status quo, just read Seth Godin.

Public Education should probably be renamed Public Schooling. I have no reservations saying that. Because Schooling is what we do. It is a system, with standards and standardized ways of doing things. Education is a corollary benefit for some, maybe. My entire master's thesis written more than a decade ago dealt with this problem. In a nutshell, my question (for middle school kids) was: 'Is School Real?'. I was attempting to get at whether school and a kid's real world have anything in common. The lengthy title of the thesis was: Schooling and student perceptions: Understanding meaning and relevance of 'the place called school' in the lives of middle school students. Turns out that students saw a connection in the cafeteria, at recess, sometimes in PE, Music or Industrial Arts and in the hallways. Everyplace else in school required them to play a role-to 'check out' from their real world; to grin and bear it.

This was 11 years ago. Before Apple invented the i-pod. Before MySpace, Friendster and Facebook. Before social networking. Before Xbox, Wii, World of Warcraft. Before cell phones with apps and wireless everything. So, 4 years ago, when I saw all these things that evolved quickly and were here to stay, I began to realize that the Schooling System was being left in the dust. I began reading Godin. His sentiments fit what I saw in Education as a problem. I began writing about it. Don't know if all the ranting did any good but in the last 4 years others were thinking the same thing. Thus, we now have Classroom 2.0 where Educators interested in using technology for change can share ideas. We have Thomas Friedman urging us that the World is Flat and we better wake up. We have Daniel Pink saying the same only different--we must become Artists and Creators in the Future because the routine jobs will be left to robots or will be outsourced. There is a modest and growing group of Educators using Twitter to advance change and share information about better ways forward. And now we have State Department's of Education recognizing that, indeed, there is something new afoot and that kids are growing up different (digitally, creatively, expressively).

This something has been termed '21st Century Skills'. Standardizing and then prescribing those skills will not work because the new way is not about memorization and testing, it is a way of BEING. The whole manner in which young people go about getting things done has changed. And Public Schooling needs to change, now, too. For Real. No more pretend change. No more going through the motions.

So Godin got me started and he still inspires me to think and do and change and grow. With Linchpin, his latest book, he offers a solid premise as to WHY we are where we are in Education. He doesn't blame good teachers or even good administrators. He blames the Schooling System. But he does challenge teachers (YOU) to change things, to be extraordinary, indispensable. I think, if you're a teacher now, that means leading by example (using new tools, creating, connecting, collaborating) and fighting to change the current Educational Paradigm of schooling.

Libraries, Schooling and Education

The difference between libraries and schools from the perspective of net caster Mac Davis. He echoes John Taylor Gotto in much of what he says. The video is not excellent quality but Mac's points are well worth heeding. Indeed, as this blog continues to point out there are vast differences between schooling and education/learning.

This video causes me to also question the current mania for grouping students socially--because, presumably, students learn better in social groups. That was NEVER the case for me and I'm willing to be bet, not for this student. Take a listen...