A Chorus for Change
It's the season for change, Obama's sweeping victory in the recent election driving home the point.
Change of the non-political sort has been on my mind recently. At the behest of my friend Victor Oritz, I spent a September weekend reading Dan Pink's book A Whole New Mind, about how right-brain thinking will be what is valued in the 21st century. I had done some work for my previous employer to help change how teachers approach student learning and had thought then that we were getting close to a consensus of understanding in the educational community about the need to reshape our standards and strategies for student learning. Pink's book offers yet another voice to what appeared then to be a growing chorus.
As a matter of fact, I frequently find the issue of "21st Century Learning" in places I don't expect - usually from a Google search on some slightly related topic. Today I stumbled onto the Executive Report by the National Center on Education and the Economy, called Tough Choices or Tough Times (2007). It's a call for the entire educational system in the country to change - in some ways a bit pie in the sky perhaps - but I think it makes points applicable to individual schools and teachers. Some notable excerpts:
It is becoming more and more obvious that it's not just Thomas Friedman, or Bill Daggett, or Peter Pappas, or Dan Pink, but it's numerous researchers and studies across business and education that are pointing out we have to change how we educate young people in this country. Students well-prepared for giving back the facts from lectures won't be valued in the 21st century. AP Teachers like me, and schools and teachers in general are going to have to be more innovative in designing strategies for student learning. We're going to have to get our students thinking outside the box (across disciplines), using synthetic knowledge in creative ways to solve complex problems. The future will require smart, innovative, divergent thinkers, not students who can choose from options A to E on the Scantron form.
As the chorus of voices continues to grow louder, we have to believe change is on its way. The question is whether the national educational community will change in time. Change is indeed coming. Will we profit from it or be left behind, longing for the past?
Change of the non-political sort has been on my mind recently. At the behest of my friend Victor Oritz, I spent a September weekend reading Dan Pink's book A Whole New Mind, about how right-brain thinking will be what is valued in the 21st century. I had done some work for my previous employer to help change how teachers approach student learning and had thought then that we were getting close to a consensus of understanding in the educational community about the need to reshape our standards and strategies for student learning. Pink's book offers yet another voice to what appeared then to be a growing chorus.
As a matter of fact, I frequently find the issue of "21st Century Learning" in places I don't expect - usually from a Google search on some slightly related topic. Today I stumbled onto the Executive Report by the National Center on Education and the Economy, called Tough Choices or Tough Times (2007). It's a call for the entire educational system in the country to change - in some ways a bit pie in the sky perhaps - but I think it makes points applicable to individual schools and teachers. Some notable excerpts:
- "If someone can figure out the algorithm for a routine job, chances are that it is economic to automate it" - accountants, legal aids - beware.
- "Even if we succeed in matching the very high levels of mastery of mathematics and science of Indian engineers — an enormous challenge for this country — why would the world’s employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work?"
- "leadership depends on a deep vein of creativity that is constantly renewing itself, and on a myriad of people who can imagine how people can use things that have never been available before"
- "creativity and innovation are the key to the good life, in which high levels of education — a very different kind of education than most of us have had — are going to be the only security there is"
It is becoming more and more obvious that it's not just Thomas Friedman, or Bill Daggett, or Peter Pappas, or Dan Pink, but it's numerous researchers and studies across business and education that are pointing out we have to change how we educate young people in this country. Students well-prepared for giving back the facts from lectures won't be valued in the 21st century. AP Teachers like me, and schools and teachers in general are going to have to be more innovative in designing strategies for student learning. We're going to have to get our students thinking outside the box (across disciplines), using synthetic knowledge in creative ways to solve complex problems. The future will require smart, innovative, divergent thinkers, not students who can choose from options A to E on the Scantron form.
As the chorus of voices continues to grow louder, we have to believe change is on its way. The question is whether the national educational community will change in time. Change is indeed coming. Will we profit from it or be left behind, longing for the past?
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