Nothing stays the same, or so we hear. Yet, by in large, school has stayed the same for much of the last 100 years. Nonetheless, we are starting to see the inevitable change in schools as we get further into the 21st Century. As for me, I think government policy has had too much effect, technology needs to have greater effect, and the desire of educators for change must become personal.
We are the professionals; real change needs to be up to us! We should not be the pawns of policy but rather the authors of change in our system. OK you say, how? Technology allows us to "flip" our classrooms from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. The question then becomes do we believe that the point of student learning is to improve thinking or to improve test-taking? Policy makers want school to be about test-taking. We teachers should want the point of learning to be about improving thinking.
My feeling has always been that educational policy should be about "desired" outcomes, not mandated inputs or content. If we see policy as expected outcomes and we professionals control the inputs and process, then we can both meet the letter of the law AND improve student thinking. This is where the "rubber meets the road" in teaching. Do you know how to control both content and process to improve student thinking? As professionals that is our task. We each also need to be learners ourselves, don't we!?
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