This week the blog post is less specific and more open. I have always had difficulty with more open ended tasks. Even back in High School the research projects were always easier when we were given a topic but twice as difficult when the choice was open. I never really though about why, I just grumbled and went with it. Over the course of the last year and a half in the ITS program I have started to think about it more, not consciously but in the back of my mind. This morning as my kids were watching Croods I read an article through the Google Newsstand app on my phone. The article was from Business Insider and talked about how Steve Jobs viewed tools that enhanced what you can do. It made me think. Which made me think about Larry Cuban's book Oversold and Underused, computers and technology speed up what we can do. We are (sometimes) more efficient using technology but I rarely see anyone changing what they to because they can do different things when they have access to new technologies. Change is hard, change is risky, change takes time to learn, change involves making mistakes and mistakes adds time and more challenges. As teachers this is very hard to embrace, the education system is to high stakes and punishes mistakes and risk taking especially if they fail. This is dangerous to education and society as a whole, if we can't adapt and enhance ourselves with advancements in technology we are going to fall farther and farther behind. As my mother used to say when teaching me how to ski, "if your not falling your not learning."
Our children are growing up doing this, our schools and teachers must do it as well.
Hi Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI share your reserve for taking on vague tasks. I often like to know the parameters which I should stick to when completing an assignment. I think this is in part because of the fear of failing that you mentioned. I was always that student that asked- how long does this need to be? or Is this correct? I would absolutely hate it when teachers would tell me it didn't matter. I knew this wasn't true, because if I didn't do something to a certain standard my grade would suffer. I am guilty of doing this now with students. I want them to take risks and challenge themselves in their assignments. I want students to learn and grow from their mistakes. The current educational system wants us to challenge students, while continuing to focus on grades/data/achievement scores.
Kevin I really liked your point about how hard change is in education and how quickly change has occured in our society involving technology. That graphic depiction of this quick change really puts it into perspective for me. My question is how do we speed up the pace of change in education? Currently I'm couseling a family on my case load who is frustrated with how slow the homebound process works in education. Why are there so many hoops to jump through, why is the timeline so slow? I feel for this family and have seen this resistance to change and how slow things change myself first hand at work in many instances. Children are getting quicker and quicker in how they process information and with how they collaborate and if we teachers do not catch up our jobs might become obsolete...maybe?
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