Before I am demonized for protecting the status quo in a post on my own blog, please understand that I advocate many changes in education. We have a long way to go to provide a truly fantastic education for the 21st Century.
I expect teachers to work very hard to meet the needs of a wildly diverse student body. I expect teachers to keep learning new content and new pedagogy throughout their careers. I expect teachers to find ways to ignite the passions of their students. I expect students to take responsibility for their learning in an environment that encourages them to be creative thinkers. I expect teachers to take advantage of the vast resources available to them through an online Personal Learning Network. I expect teachers to be responsible for their own prossional development in an environment that encourages them to collaborate and grow.
I expect principals to tackle the difficult task of truly supervising the teachers even when that means working to remove an ineffective, veteran teacher. I expect principals to give their teachers a sense of purpose, a large amount of autonomy, and the time/resources to gain mastery when creating professional development programs,
I expect all of us to talk less about the poverty-related problems our students bring to their education and talk more about what we are going to do to improve their learning. I expect to hear talk like ‘What can I do to be better?’
I expect the community to trust their educators. I expect the community to want to be involved. I expect the community to support their schools.
I expect a lot, but I know it can be done.
The thing is, once we improve in all the ways that I’ve mentioned, we just have to change more. Our society and our children will never stop changing, and we have to change with them. Good teaching will always require good learning on the part of the teacher.
So, say ‘No’ to the status quo.
Related articles
- Obama seeks to end ‘status quo’ of education law – USA Today (news.google.com)
- Why I am not a defender of the ‘status quo’ in education – because the ‘status quo’ is failed ed reforms (seattleducation2010.wordpress.com)
I don’t think you will be ‘demonized for protecting the status quo in a post on [your] own blog’… the link you provided fits nicely into your expectation that “principals to give their teachers a sense of purpose”. If we talk about how ‘our schools’ are failing, then we are saying ‘we are failures’… and it’s hard to find purpose in that!
Thank you David. Good point about calling ourselves failures. Although, we do need to take a long hard look at what we do in order to do it better.
Re: poverty
We need to talk about it more often so that we can actually force outsiders to talk about it, too. Poverty has been made into a stagnant inevitability instead of a piece that can change. Thus, it’s not just a “personal responsibility” conversation, but a whole school conversation where people can learn how to mitigate those pieces in socio-emotional development.
Otherwise, we’re in agreement as a whole. We need to push further.
I agree. We need to talk about the effects of poverty whenever possible. We can’t let the others dismiss poverty as the real root of so many American problems.
Thanks.