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“One can’t believe
impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t
had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age I always did
it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six
impossible things before breakfast.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland
Introduction –
Education in the 21st Century
Revised August 2008.
Your Assignment,
Should You Choose to Accept It . . .
Like Alice, many educators,
policy makers and even the general public respond resoundingly with
"That's impossible!" when challenged to adopt a new paradigm of
education for the 21st century. Most people today adhere to a
paradigm of education that is strictly 19th century. But, like the
Queen, a growing number of educators are believing in and accomplishing
"the impossible".
Scott McLeod, in his blog,
Dangerously Irrelevant,
recently reminded us of a line from Mission Impossible, and we
must apply that challenge to all of society. "Your assignment,
should you choose to accept it" is to take education truly into the 21st
century. It is not enough to say that we are already living there.
Technically it is the 21st century, but our schools are not there, and
our challenge now is to reinvent schools for the 21st century - for the
sake of our children, our students and the welfare of our world.
Making such a paradigm shift is not easy. After all, when any of
us thinks of education, we usually think of what we knew as school - the
way it has always been. That is how parents, policy makers,
politicians and many students think of school. But we have to make
the paradigm shift to 21st century education.
So what is 21st century
education? It is bold. It breaks
the mold. It is flexible, creative, challenging, and complex. It
addresses a rapidly changing world filled with fantastic new problems as
well as exciting new possibilities.
Fortunately, there is a growing body of research supporting an
increasing number of 21st century schools. We have living proof,
inspiring examples to follow, in schools across the United States.
These schools vary, but are united in the fundamentals of 21st century
education - see
Critical Attributes of 21st Century Education
and
Multiple Literacies for the 21st Century.
Scott McLeod has issued the challenge of creating a plan to get us from
"here" to "there".
The 21st Century
The new millennium was
ushered in by a dramatic technological revolution. We now live in an
increasingly diverse, globalized, and complex, media-saturated society.
According to Dr. Douglas Kellner at UCLA this technological revolution
will have a greater impact on society than the transition from an oral
to a print culture.1
Today's kindergarteners
will be retiring in the year 2067. We have no idea of what the world
will look in five years, much less 60 years, yet we are charged with
preparing our students for life in that world. Our students are facing
many emerging issues such as global warming, famine, poverty, health
issues, a global population explosion and other environmental and social
issues. These issues lead to a need for students to be able to
communicate, function and create change personally, socially,
economically and politically on local, national and global levels.
Even kindergarten
children can make a difference in the world by participating in
real-life, real-world service learning projects. You're never too
young, or too old, to make your voice heard and create change that makes
the world a better place.
Emerging technologies and
resulting globalization also provide unlimited possibilities for
exciting new discoveries and developments such as new forms of energy,
medical advances, restoration of environmentally ravaged areas,
communications, and exploration into space and into the depths of the
oceans. The possibilities are unlimited.
21st
Century Skills
21st Century
Schools, LLC recognizes the critical need for developing 21st
century skills. However, we believe that authentic education addresses
the “whole child”, the “whole person”, and does not limit our
professional development and curriculum design to workplace readiness.
21st century
skills learned through our curriculum, which is interdisciplinary,
integrated, project-based, and more, include and are learned within a
project-based curriculum by utilizing the seven survival skills
advocated by Tony Wagner in his book, The Global Achievement Gap:
- Critical Thinking and
Problem Solving
- Collaboration across
Networks and Leading by Influence
- Agility and Adaptability
- Initiative and
Entrepreneurialism
- Effective Oral and
Written Communication
- Accessing and Analyzing
Information
- Curiosity and Imagination
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iKids in the New
Millennium
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One of our goals
is to help students become iKids and truly global citizens.
In many countries today’s
students are referred to as “digital natives”, and today’s educators as
“digital immigrants”. Teachers are working with students whose entire
lives have been immersed in the 21st century media culture.
Today’s students are digital learners – they literally take in the world
via the filter of computing devices: the cellular phones, handheld
gaming devices, PDAs, and laptops they take everywhere, plus the
computers, TVs, and game consoles at home. A survey by the Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation found that young people (ages 8-18) mainline
electronic media for more than six hours a day, on average. Many are
multitasking – listening to music while surfing the Web or
instant-messaging friends while playing a video game.
Even toddlers utilize
multimedia devices and the Internet with tools such as handheld video
games like Leapster and web sites such as
www.PBSkids.org and
www.Nick.com. Preschoolers
(including my 2-year-old grandson) easily navigate these electronic,
multimedia resources on games in which they learn colors, numbers,
letters, spelling, and more complex tasks such as mixing basic colors to
create new colors, problem-solving activities, and reading.
However, as Dr. Michael
Wesch points out, although today’s students understand how to access and
utilize these tools, many of them are used for entertainment purposes
only, and the students are not really media literate. Read the
section below on Web 2.0 and new social communities. Dr. Wesch
shows us how to use the tools to enable our students our students to
become truly media literate
as they function in an online collaborative, research-based environment
– researching, analyzing, synthesizing, critiquing, evaluating and
creating new knowledge!
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Web 2.0
and new Social Communities
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Dr. Michael Wesch, a member
of the Advisory Board for 21st Century Schools, made a global
impact on August 2, 2008 when his presentation at the
American Library of Congress (on June 28),
An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube,
was featured on YouTube. In
this presentation Dr. Wesch opens our eyes to the phenomenon of new
social communities and to the classroom use of many recently developed
Web 2.0 tools such as
Jott,
Twitter, YouTube (there is also
TeacherTube,
SchoolTube, and
StudentTube),
Diigo,
Google Earth, and many more.
Dr. Wesch demonstrates how
media production and Web 2.0 applications are important tools in
education. These tools are important for the study of new social
communities as well as learning authentic, 21st century media
literacy. He takes the tools of Web 2.0 beyond the common use of
entertainment to important understandings of the world. It is the 21st
century way to learn and apply important 21st century skills.
See an example of Dr. Wesch's
class in their
World Systems Simulation, then view the video,
A Portal to Media Literacy, in which
Dr. Wesch describes how they applied these various
technologies in this course.
Also see the work of another
21st century leader and educator,
Dr. Scott
McLeod. His video
Did You Know 2.0 on YouTube has been
viewed over 2 million times. Two of his blogs were named in the
Top Ten Blogs of 2007 by the George Lucas Education Foundation.
Visit his blog,
Dangerously Irrelevant, for a wealth of
information and ideas related to education, technology, the 21st
century, leadership, staff development and more.
For additional examples of
real-life applications of technologies please read Building
Schools for the Future in Tameside – the use of ICT (Information
and Communications Technologies) for an example of
A Day in the Life of
a Student and
A Day in the Life of a Future Teacher, written by Ian Smith,
Manchester, England.
For examples of how this type
of curriculum can be structured and used in a European country please
see the
Tameside Entitlement Curriculum developed by one of our
consultants, Ian Smith. This curriculum is being implemented at this
time in England.
“School”, “Teacher”, “Learner” and “Curriculum” for the 21st
Century
How should education be
structured to meet the needs of students in this 21st century
world? How do we now define “School”, “Teacher” “Learner” and
"Curriculum"?
Schools in the 21st
century will be laced with a project-based curriculum for life aimed at
engaging students in addressing real-world problems, issues important to
humanity, and questions that matter.
This is a dramatic
departure from the factory-model education of the past. It is
abandonment, finally, of textbook-driven, teacher-centered, paper and
pencil schooling. It means a new way of understanding the concept of
“knowledge”, a new definition of the “educated person”. A new way of
designing and delivering the curriculum is required.
We offer the following
new definitions for “School”, “Teacher” and “Learner” appropriate for
the 21st century:
Schools will go from
‘buildings’ to 'nerve centers', with walls that are porous and
transparent, connecting teachers, students and the community to the
wealth of knowledge that exists in the world.”
Teacher - From primary
role as a dispenser of information to orchestrator of learning and
helping students turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into
wisdom.
The 21st
century will require knowledge generation, not just information
delivery, and schools will need to create a “culture of inquiry”.
Learner -
In the past a learner was a young person who went to school, spent a
specified amount of time in certain courses, received passing grades and
graduated. Today we must see learners in a new context:
First – we must maintain student interest by helping them see how what
they are learning prepares them for life in the real world.
Second – we must instill curiosity, which is fundamental to lifelong
learning.
Third
– we must be flexible in how we teach.
Fourth – we must excite learners to become even more resourceful so
that they will continue to learn outside the formal school day.”
So what will schools look
like, exactly? What will the curriculum look like? How will this 21st
century curriculum be organized, and how will it impact the way we
design and build schools, how we assess students, how we purchase
resources, how we acquire and utilize the new technologies, and what
does all this mean for us in an era of standardized testing and
accountability?
Imagine a school in which
the students – all of them – are so excited about school that they can
hardly wait to get there. Imagine having little or no “discipline
problems” because the students are so engaged in their studies that
those problems disappear. Imagine having parents calling, sending
notes, or coming up to the school to tell you about the dramatic changes
they are witnessing in their children: newly found enthusiasm and
excitement for school, a desire to work on projects, research and write
after school and on weekends. Imagine your students making nearly
exponential growth in their basic skills of reading, writing, speaking,
listening, researching, scientific explorations, math, multimedia skills
and more!
It is possible. It has
happened, and is happening, in schools across the country. I have seen
this first-hand with my classes, and I have seen it at other schools
with whom I have worked. And there is growing evidence of schools
everywhere having the same results when they implement a 21st
century curriculum.
20th Century Classroom
vs. the 21st Century Classroom
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USA 1960’s
typical classroom – teacher-centered, fragmented curriculum,
students working in isolation, memorizing facts. |

A classroom
at the School of Environmental Studies, aka the Zoo School, in
Minneapolis. A perfect
example of real-life, relevant, project-based 21st
century education.
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Time-based |
Outcome-based
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Focus: memorization
of discrete facts |
Focus: what students
Know, Can Do and Are Like after all the details are forgotten.
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Lessons focus on the
lower level of Bloom’s Taxonomy – knowledge, comprehension and
application. |
Learning is designed
on upper levels of Blooms’ – synthesis, analysis and evaluation
(and include lower levels as curriculum is designed down from
the top.)
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Textbook-driven |
Research-driven
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Passive learning
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Active Learning
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Learners work in
isolation – classroom within 4 walls |
Learners work
collaboratively with classmates and others around the world –
the Global Classroom
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Teacher-centered:
teacher is center of attention and provider of information
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Student-centered:
teacher is facilitator/coach |
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Little to no student
freedom |
Great deal of student
freedom
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“Discipline problems
– educators do not trust students and vice versa. No student
motivation. |
No “discipline
problems” – students and teaches have mutually respectful
relationship as co-learners; students are highly motivated.
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Fragmented curriculum |
Integrated and
Interdisciplinary curriculum
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Grades averaged |
Grades based on what
was learned
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Low expectations |
High expectations –
“If it isn’t good it isn’t done.” We expect, and ensure, that
all students succeed in learning at high levels. Some may go
higher – we get out of their way to let them do that.
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Teacher is judge. No
one else sees student work. |
Self, Peer and Other
assessments. Public audience, authentic assessments.
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Curriculum/School is
irrelevant and meaningless to the students. |
Curriculum is
connected to students’ interests, experiences, talents and the
real world.
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Print is the primary
vehicle of learning and assessment. |
Performances,
projects and multiple forms of media are used for learning and
assessment
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Diversity in students
is ignored. |
Curriculum and
instruction address student diversity
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Literacy is the 3 R’s – reading,
writing and math |
Multiple
literacies of the 21st century – aligned to living
and working in a globalized new millennium.
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Factory model, based upon the
needs of employers for the Industrial Age of the 19th century.
Scientific management. |
Global model, based upon the
needs of a globalized, high-tech society. |
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Driven by the NCLB and
standardized testing mania. |
Standardized testing has its
place. Education is not driven by the NCLB and
standardized testing mania. |
What is 21st
century curriculum?
Twenty-first century
curriculum has certain critical attributes. It is interdisciplinary,
project-based, and research-driven. It is connected to the community –
local, state, national and global. Sometimes students are collaborating
with people around the world in various projects. The curriculum
incorporates higher order thinking skills, multiple intelligences,
technology and multimedia, the multiple literacies of the 21st
century, and authentic assessments. Service learning is an important
component.
The classroom is expanded
to include the greater community. Students are self-directed, and work
both independently and interdependently. The curriculum and instruction
are designed to challenge all students, and provides for
differentiation.
The curriculum is not
textbook-driven or fragmented, but is thematic, project-based and
integrated. Skills and content are not taught as an end in themselves,
but students learn them through their research and application in their
projects. Textbooks, if they have them, are just one of many
resources.
Knowledge is not memorization of facts and figures, but is constructed through research
and application, and connected to previous knowledge, personal
experience, interests, talents and passions. The skills and content become relevant and needed as
students require this information to complete their projects. The
content and basic skills are applied within the context of the
curriculum, and are not ends in themselves.
Assessment moves from
regurgitation of memorized facts and disconnected processes to
demonstration of understanding through application in a variety of
contexts. Real-world audiences are an important part of the assessment
process, as is self-assessment.
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Media literacy skills
are honed as students address real-world issues, from the
environment to poverty. Students use the technological and
multimedia tools now available to them to design and produce web
sites, television shows, radio shows, public service
announcements, mini-documentaries, how-to DVDs, oral histories,
and even films. |
Students at the
Automotive High School in New York City create how-to DVDs on how to
complete various automotive repairs. A student from California created
a film on sweatshops that made an international impact.
Students find their
voices as they create projects using multimedia and deliver these
products to real-world audiences, realizing that they can make a
difference and change the world. They learn what it is to be a
contributing citizen, and carry these citizenship skills forward
throughout their lives.
As a result, standardized
test scores are higher. This is because students have acquired the
skills and content in a meaningful, connected way and the understanding
is there. They actually KNOW the content on a much higher level of
understanding, and they have developed their basic skills by constant
application throughout the duration of the unit.
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The Global Classroom
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Every day students from
countries all over the world collaborate on important projects. The web
site,
ePals, is a site where teachers
and students can go to join or start a collaborative project with anyone
in the world. According to ePals, Inc., “Our Global Community™ is the
largest online community of K-12 learners, enabling more than 325,000
educators and 126,000 classrooms in over 200 countries and territories
to safely connect, exchange ideas, and learn together. Award winning
SchoolBlog™ and SchoolMail™ products are widely used and trusted by
schools around the world.”
As we have seen from our
own experiences, from the media, from university research, and as it was
demonstrated in the
Did You Know? video,
technologies, especially the Internet, have resulted in a globalized
society. The world is now “flat”. Our world has been transformed, and
will continue to change at ever-increasing rates.
In order for our students
to be prepared to navigate this 21st century world, they must
become literate in 21st century literacies, including
multicultural, media, information, emotional, ecological, financial and
cyber literacies. Collaborating with students from around the world in
meaningful, real-life projects is a necessary tool for developing these
literacies. Students can learn that through collaboration, not
competition, they can work together to make the world a better place.
Students will use technologies, including the Internet, and global
collaboration to solve critical issues.
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Green Education |
Our planet and its
citizen residents are facing a growing number of issues related to the
environment. Education is the key. From environmental awareness to
producing scientists, politicians, international relations experts,
media producers, and others, our schools will assist students in finding
the answers to our environmental problems.
Students will be
motivated as they achieve higher levels of learning in all content areas
from science and math to cultural studies and nutrition and other areas
when they are involved in projects such as
The Edible Schoolyard,
The Globe Program,
Jason Projects, the
Global Johnny Appleseed Project and many more global classroom
projects focused on the environment. From renewable fuels, to designing
“green” buildings (including “green” schools), gardening, nutrition,
environmental law, and more, we can teach “green”.
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What does all this
mean for how we design and build schools?
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As we move forward
in the process of creating a world-class, 21st century
educational system, the building of new schools and the remodeling of
present school facilities will be addressed. 21st Century
Schools, LLC, can assist you in utilizing the latest research and
technologies to create environmentally friendly, energy efficient,
“green” schools. In fact, it is not uncommon for students to apply
their knowledge of research, mathematics, science, technologies, and
engineering to design real buildings! This is just one example of a
relevant, rigorous, 21st century, real-life curriculum
project. And think of how good this will look in the students’
portfolios, and the knowledge that they will have created and
contributed to the world.
There is much more to
consider. There is no “one size fits all”, or “one style fits all”
blueprint. Each school should be designed with the students and the
goals of the school and community in mind. However, there are some
basic things you should consider.
You will want to stay
away from the traditional, what I call egg carton, design which has
students isolated in small classrooms. Those school facilities
were designed for the emerging industrial age of the 19th century, and
were based on a factory model and scientific management system. There are many excellent
examples of new schools being designed and built which support the kind
of curriculum and instruction briefly described above.
First of all, the design
takes into account the kind of spaces needed by students and teachers as
they conduct their investigations and implement their projects. Spaces
will be needed for large groups, small groups and for independent work.
There should be plenty of wall space and other areas for displaying
student work. This includes a place where the parents and community can
gather to watch student performances as well as a place where they can
meet for discussions.
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What about technology
resources? |
First of all,
technologies are not an end in themselves; technologies are tools
students use to create knowledge and to create personal and social
change.
There should be full
access to technology. If students do not have computers or access to
the Internet at home, together we will find a way to provide them. If
we can, we will obtain laptops for every student and teacher. Buildings
will need to be wired in such a way that students can access their
files, as well as the Internet, from anywhere in the school. Various
labs and learning centers should be set up around the campus. Art,
music, theatre, television, radio and film studios can be created with
relatively small expenditures. All classrooms should have televisions
to watch broadcasts created by their school as well as by other schools
in the district.
As an example, I recently
visited a small school district in western Arkansas that had a
technology lab that would be the envy of many universities and
corporations. It had half a million dollars worth of equipment and
software, absolutely state-of-the-art, and the school did not have to
invest any money at all. They were only required to create a space to
set up the lab and provide one full-time teacher.
Students use this lab to
do everything from architectural design to filmmaking to creating
virtual reality programs on various topics. For example, a group of
them had made a field trip to NASA in Houston. They filmed what they
saw, and when they returned they created a virtual reality program for
the other students in the district to use to “visit NASA”!
I was eager to discuss
all this with the teacher who ran this lab. These students had some
very impressive accomplishments, including successful lobbying to get
laws changed. They were making a difference in the world. I expected
the teacher to be an expert in these areas, but found that she actually
did not know how to use most of the equipment and software. The
students had taught themselves using nothing more than some manuals and
some online technical assistance. It seemed that the students were
naturally inclined to understanding and working with these technologies,
and they were highly motivated to learn them. And these were students
in a tiny, low-income, rural district!
I believe there are
definitely resources available which will allow us to eventually create
these opportunities for all schools and children.
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Examples of this
curriculum design –
a teachable moment!
|
Here are a few examples
of integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum designed by Anne Shaw.
Although it has been three years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the
Gulf Coast of the United States, impacting the entire nation, and even
the world, it remains a relevant topic to study. This is a rich theme,
which can carry most, if not all, of the content standards; all basic
skills can be taught within this theme; it remains current, it is
relevant, and the student interest is there. Many critical social
issues can be addressed within this theme. It also provides an
excellent vehicle for some very important, as well as fun, service
learning projects. Service learning is the ultimate 21st
century curriculum.
When I design a unit I
begin with a theme. Then I brainstorm, or concept map, the theme.
I also begin outlining my ideas by creating a PowerPoint slide show on the
theme. You can see a beginning level concept map as well as my
PowerPoint on Hurricane Katrina
online at the links listed below. You can also see some ideas for
service learning projects connected with the unit. This event is most
definitely a teachable moment!
There are many other
themes discussed in some detail on our web site. Please see the links
below. Our most recently developed theme is a global collaborative
classrooms service learning project: the Global Johnny
Appleseed Project, which encompasses all
the disciplines, and connects to issues from the environment, to
scientific developments, to philanthropy, medical advances, media
literacy and more! Go to that link and view the PowerPoint presentation
for more ideas!
Curriculum Links: Please view the following
video/slideshows at the links below:
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After School Matters |
Lest anyone doubt the reach of America's
after-school woes -- more than 14 million K-12 students, including
40,000 kindergartners and almost 4 million middle school students, take
care of themselves after school -- it appears even the economy is
suffering:
A new study by
Catalyst and the Women's Studies Research Center, at Brandeis
University, shows that the workplace productivity of U.S. parents
suffers when they are worried about what their kids are doing after
school.
2
We need more after school
programs. We need after school programs that meet the needs of the 21st
century student. What are those needs? What possibilities exist for
designing such programs? How can we create programs that are fun,
motivational and educational?
"No one believes that when
the bell rings at the end of the school day, children stop learning.
Curiosity bubbles inside the minds of children from the moment they wake
in the morning to when they go to bed at night."3
Our challenge is to
encourage, connect, and foster learning throughout a child’s day. How
do we help children make sense of all the information and experiences in
their lives? How do we ensure that all children have opportunities to
reach their full potential in a competitive world where thinking skills
are the most important asset of a society?
How can we extend the learning
throughout the day for all children? Part of our task in
collaborating with the steering committee, parents, students and
community members will be to work toward designing some programs which
will meet these needs. There are many possibilities: internships,
various clubs such as photography, gardening, writing, bicycle building,
computer repairs, the arts, sports, culinary arts, creating student-run
businesses (entrepreneurships), and many more.
Getting from "Here" to "There" - What's the
Plan and How do We Implement It?
See Scott McLeod's developing plan on getting from
here to there at Dangerously Irrelevant.
My thoughts are that in order to create change in
education all stakeholders must be on board. One of the
main obstacles as I see it is the enormous resistance to change among
educators, policy makers, industry leaders, parents, and even many
students. There have been many movements to create change in our
educational system, all fraught with conflict. Some of the current
efforts are trying to create change without actually changing - they are
trying to take attributes of the 21st century and force fit them into
the 19th and 20th century ways of designing and delivering education.
It won't work!
One dismal failure, and I believe that most
educators will agree with me on this, is the NCLB. In one
interesting reference I encountered the author stated that "the light at the end of the tunnel is actually the
NCLB locomotive".
Listed below are some suggestions and thoughts
regarding how to get from "here" to "there". They are not listed in any
particular order as yet, and the list is under development. Please
send your suggestions to
Director@21stCenturySchools.com
The Purpose of Education
Some years ago, when working toward a
doctorate in curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas at
Austin, I was very focused on changing education. In fact, it was
my fierce desire to find a way to create change that led me back to
school. One of my professors, Dr. John Martin Rich, introduced me
to the concept of
Critical Pedagogy. Through that research I discovered
Douglas
Kellner, who at that time was the Chair of the Philosophy Department
at UT. He became my teacher and advisor, and it was Dr. Kellner
who led me toward multiple literacies, media literacy, and the use of
new technologies to design and deliver a 21st century curriculum.
During that time I wrote a paper on the
Purpose of Education. It is a beginning analysis I had to do
in order to begin to understand critical pedagogy. It requires
much development, but perhaps it has some points we can use to begin to
build a vision for education in the 21st century. I studied
critical pedagogy for a long time, and necessarily had to conduct a
great deal of research into the history of education, the philosophy of
education, and the evolution of critical pedagogy, which led me to
backtrack philosophy all the way back to Aristotle and Plato. It also
required a look into history, the evolution of countries, their
economies, governments, and industries. See also
Philosophical Foundations.
We must realize, and our students must understand,
that we cannot move toward a vision of the future until we understand
the socio-historical context of where we are now. Where are we?
What events led us to be where we are? How can this inform our
development of a vision for the future and how we want to get there?
A clear articulation of the purpose of education
for the 21st century is the place to begin. Creating a vision of
where we want to go requires us to ask the question - why? What is
the purpose of education? What do we need to do to accomplish that
purpose?
Teaching the Elephant to Dance
I believe that when many parents and educators are
introduced to the paradigm of education in the 21st century that it is
so foreign to them that they automatically reject it - automatically and angrily! We
are attempting to create a huge change in our society. This effort
brings to mind the title of a book I read many years ago in my Master's
Degree program at the University of Houston at Victoria (Texas);
the book was Teaching the Elephant to Dance, by James A. Belasco,
Ph.D. It was a book about creating change in organizations
(business and industry) in order to cope with the changing world of the
1990's. When I think of the enormous task before us - revamping
and reinventing the educational system in the United States - the image
of a "slow, ponderous pachyderm" comes to mind.5
Dr. Belasco explains that elephants
are trained to stay in one place, through conditioning, with nothing
more than a bracelet around one ankle - attached to nothing.
However, if the tent catches fire, and the elephant smells the smoke and
sees the flames, the conditioned response is overcome and the elephant
moves. He recommends that we find a way to get people to smell the
smoke and see the flames - without actually burning down the tent.
Teaching this elephant to dance is going to be a
major endeavor, and it will have to encompass everything from teacher
education and administrative education programs at universities to
inservice and continuing professional development for educators, to
educating everyone else.
Public Service Announcements
- Our
task is to change the way people think about education. I think
about previous efforts to create change across our entire society.
Many movements have grown and succeeded in creating change in how people
think. In other words, a paradigm shift occurred! When I was
a child (I was born in 1954) most cars did not come equipped with seat
belts, and there were certainly no seat belt laws. Someone decided
that it would be better if Americans wore seat belts. Part of the
process of getting people into that mind set was a series of public
service announcements. I can still hear the little jingle:
"Buckle up for safety, buckle up! Buckle up for safety, always
buckle up! Show the world you care by the belt you wear.
Buckle up for safety, everybody, buckle up!" Today the message is
"Click it or ticket!"
Another major change accomplished with a lot of
help from PSAs was the movement to stop littering. There was a
time in our country when littering was a terrible problem. I
remember particularly the PSA with the Crying Indian, Iron Eyes Cody, in
the Keep America Beautiful campaign in 1971. We had Woodsy Owl
telling us "Give a hoot, don't pollute!"
Smokey Bear reminded us to help prevent forest
fires. (It was later changed to Smokey the Bear to fit a new
jingle.) See samples of PSAs from the Crying Indian, Smokey the Bear
and Woodsy Owl here.
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| Keep America Beautiful 1971 |
Only you can prevent forest fires! |
Give a hoot, don't pollute! |
These PSAs worked! I have thought for years
that we need an ongoing, comprehensive program of public service
announcements to teach people about education in the 21st century.
The
Ad Council has
been creating public service announcements since 1942. Today's
campaigns range from community issues, education issues, and health and
safety issues such as the environment, adoption, financial literacy,
cyberbullying prevention and much more.
In
addition to being a great tool for creating change, the development and
production of public service announcements is a wonderful way for
students to learn about technologies, art, social service, service
learning, multimedia production, the power of the Internet and media to
create change, and much more. I recommend student-produced PSAs
for the Internet and television. It will cost a lot of money, but
it is an effective tool; the government as well as nonprofit
foundations and industry leaders should all share the cost of getting
these PSAs developed and broadcast.
Web 2.0 the Problem
As
Michael Wesch pointed out in his brilliant
presentation to the Library of Congress this summer (June 23, 2008),
An
Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, the new social media tools
can create massive movements and change. Dr. Wesch provides many
examples of global movements resulting from YouTube videos. If
done well, and creatively, the same could occur with respect to change
in education. Of course, Dr. Wesch and
his Digital Ethnography Working Group
at Kansas State University are already on that road,
beginning with a wonderful video they created entitled
A Vision of
Students Today. 6
Imagine the possibilities of organizing a global
conversation and movement to create change through the design and
implementation of
truly 21st century schools! More to come . . .
Identify and Enlist Stakeholders and Supporters
in the US and abroad - education is global now.
1. Students K-16+
2. State legislatures
3. Colleges of education
4. School districts
5. Nonprofits and foundations
6. Industry leaders
7. Media producers
8. Community support groups - form, lead and
sustain.
9. Individuals with clout - for example, see
Top
Fifteen Green Grist Lists
10.more to come here . . .
11.
References
-
Kellner, Douglas;
New
Media and New Literacies: Reconstructing Education for the New
Millennium
-
Grant, Jodi, Director of
the After School Alliance;
Fourteen Million Kids,
Unsupervised
- McLeod, Scott,
Dangerously
Irrelevant
- Time, Learning and
Afterschool Task Force,
A New
Day for Learning
- Belasco, James A., Teaching the Elephant to Dance, 1991
- Wesch, Michael, Ph.
D. See his
works at Digital Ethnography.
(separate footnotes to be added for each web page and video cited)
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