About every quarter, a group of tech coaches and integrators meet and discuss current projects, struggles, and what is happening in our schools at the Regional Education Service Agency. One of the county consultants shared Terry Heick’s 12 Ideas That Will Break Education. The goal was to have conversations around some of the items. I want to highlight my response to a few of the items.
Connectivity is Replacing Knowledge
This is something I recognized when I started in education and devices were becoming more prevalent in the hands of my students. The author is correct that this is happening, but stops short of what we really need to teach our kids. We need to help our students pull the information and then synthesize it into something they can use. That is the skill of the future and what will have the greatest impact on education.
Most Academic Standards Have Limited Value
The author argues that the current standards are of little to no value because they are not based on the human experience. This, I agree with. The current state of the standards is not relevant to our students, but it would be difficult to write them in such a way to get all students. Even though it is difficult, I do believe it is possible. It will take significant work, and a significant change to current testing practices. It starts by creatively thinking of new ways to plan that curriculum. Try project based learning, having our students create more, or finding relevance for our students.
Technology Integration is Difficult to do Well
In my role, I agree. I know it to be true that it is difficult to do. The author suggests that it is a fool’s errand to try and keep pace, and eventually, school will just adapt. That will not break education. Sitting and waiting to change is not the method to use. We must be at the forefront of change and finding the way to make the change. I really don’t think that we should wait for change to happen. We need to be on the forefront of the change and be driving it.
Digital Media is More Engaging Than Non-Digital Media
The author argues that digital media is more engaging than non-digital items. As the students become more use to consuming digital media, educators need to leverage. We need to find ways that students can consume digital media, but, more importantly, we need to find ways to for our students to become the creators, sharing their stories, insight, and research. It’s not simple enough for school to become a place of consumption only.
Summary
While these ideas are a great start, I feel we must be more active in pursuing the change that we see fit in education. We can’t sit back and wait for the change to happen. If your school has invested in tech, we must ensure that we are not waiting for our staffs to catch up. We have to find ways to apply current standards to be more meaningful to our students. It is really up to us to change the way we deliver and think about the standards. For instance, can student writing be planning a script an original movie? If we start to think of ways that we can make minor changes to our current curriculum, we can start to make these changes. It’s on us.
Again, check out the original piece for full context. Read it here.
One response to “Response to Ideas That Will Break Education”
Daniel – I agree with most of your assessment/response. The common theme I noticed amongst all of your thoughts was the need for relevancy. In order for technology, academic standards, engagement, etc. to be truly impactful it has to be relevant to today’s students. How do we get there?? Definitely not waiting for the change to happen, like you mentioned. Personally, I wonder how much influence I have in helping to shift the educational landscape. I look at what my children are doing in school, and I know that they need more. But stopping short of opening my own school, how do I give them (and other children) the education that they deserve??