Manna
Today was the 2nd day of the GE Foundation’s Developing Futures in Education 2010 Conference, an invite-only conference for the districts they fund throughout the country. This morning, we had the pleasure of hearing the many schemas for schools from David Jackson, partner in the Innovation Unit, an education futurist non-profit organization in London, UK. I learned a few things that are (for better or worse) irrefutable:
- Many of us are just not ready to think 3.0 when we’re still catching up to 2.0.
- Teachers specifically want something tangible when discussing anything about the immediate or abstract future.
- We have little faith that our colleagues as a whole will want to let go of their power structure within the system.
- Many of us are still waiting for the manna to drop from the sky, or the higher-ups.
By manna, I’m referring to the nutrition that came from the heavens when the Israelites needed some nourishment in their travels through the dessert. But for the purposes of this post, I’m also referring to the idea that someone from the higher-ups, whether it be collegiate think tanks, corporation-funded non-profits, or the Secretary of Education. Believe what you will, the system perpetuates the status quo, and the profit models for education currently support millions of dollars going into third party vendors to move what we call standards wherever those in power see fit.
Therefore, when looking at the models Mr. Jackson provided, I pondered for a bit about the work many teachers are doing across the country to truly move the work forward, and the way we need to think about student learning as a whole. Then, when time for feedback came, I stood up in front of the crowd and said, “Well, this is great, and we’re intrigued by the possibilities, but if we’re really going to do the work, it has to come from us. It has to come from the ground up, not the top down. The status quo is the status quo because of this model. Rarely does real change come from the higher ups; the change has to come from students, parents, teachers, and anyone who considers themselves allies to our cause.”
I got a light applause. Appreciated, yes, but the more I thought about the future, the more it made me wonder the sort of curve we’re going to have to slide down to get true change. I sat down, had a glass of water, and just hoped for the best. Educators are practitioners, yes, but we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.
And if our hands are still cupped waiting outside, we better have a huge canteen as well.
Jose, who’s looking to reflect more on this as we go on this journey …
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I completely agree with your response to the lecturer. The challenge is bridging the gap, or scaffolding the learning as Vygotsky would say, for teachers to embrace the change in education and the future of what education should look like. Your statement above “Many of us are just not ready to think 3.0 when we’re still catching up to 2.0″ is so true and really hits the nail on the head. Right now teachers PD is limited to the now or the short term goals and rarely looks at the future. Until these types of conversations start to happen as part of PD at the teacher, student, parent and district level change will not occur. Education is classrooms today has really not changed at all. Teachers are the change agents but often don’t see that or have the power to make these changes. We keep having a lot of conversastion about moving classrooms away from teacher centric to student centric, maybe PD and education of the future needs to move away from top down centric to teacer, student, parent centric.
I believe a very powerful force in change and innovative thinking for teachers is the digital world and the powerful networking and collaboration that can occur through web sites such as this. This makes me think of the charge we should take on described in Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in A Connected Age. His thoughts on the power of our cognitive surplus, our connectdeness, and access to information in the digital world have the power to put our untapped talent and goodwill to use to transform our world. Maybe this should be the mission of all teachers.
I look forward to following and learning from the work you are doing at the teacher’s network 2030. Are there any ways other than through blogging I can get involved or be a part of this network or the work of this group?
Excellent post! I will have to remember this when I feel hopeless about the direction of education. While it may sound very cliché, it is true that we each need to be the change we want to see in our schools.
We just went through some upgrades in our system, so sorry for the late responses.
David, thank you. It’s definitely cliche, but it’s still very necessary. We still haven’t reached that point, and we need to continue pushing towards that.
Stephanie, the first thing you can do is pick up our book, Teaching2030. Once you’ve been acclimated to what we’re about in full (and no, it’s not a promo, just where we are), I’ll most definitely forward your message to our brethren at the Center for Teaching Quality (the site highlighted in the bottom corner of this site). Thank you for chiming in and you’ll hear more from us soon!