Becoming a 21st Century School
  • Blog
    • 21st Century Schools site
    • LinkedIn Group
    • Curriculum
  • Schools
    • Schools
    • Inner Harbour
    • The Zoo School
    • Anne Frank Inspire Academy
  • 21st Century Schools
  • 21st Century Schools International
  • Global Collaborative Classrooms
  • Subscribe eNews

Exploring the Possibilities!

The purpose of the blog is to provide additional support to educators as well as parents and community members who wish to create schools which will provide children with the experiences needed to flourish!

​Anne Shaw, Director, 21st Century Schools

Jerry Self, Executive Manager of 21st Century Schools changes his name to Sancho Panza

4/4/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
If you recognize the name, I applaud your literary diversity.  For those of you who don’t know the name Sancho Panza, don’t feel bad.  Sancho Panza was the pudgy, comic relief sidekick who accompanied Don Quixote on his journeys in Miguel de Cervantes’ satirical novel, Don Quixote, written in 1602, that inspired the Broadway musical and movieThe Man of La Mancha.

I’ve often felt that 21st Century Schools’ Director, Anne Shaw, is somewhat like Don Quixote in her philosophies where education is concerned.  Where Don Quixote was “tilting at windmills” (his dragons) Ms. Shaw’s dragons have been slow change and the continual barrage of excuses such as “that’s the way we’ve always done things”, “Oh that’s wonderful, but WE can’t do that in our school”, “we don’t have time, we have to get our students ready for their tests”, “we can’t do that because of our schedule”.

Other dragons are misconceptions about professional development.  Most educators seem to believe that "one-shot", "drive-by","muti-pack" professional development, or one day per year devoted to professional development, is adequate.  The research, and the reality in classrooms, clearly show that this type of professional development will not make things better.

We are constantly being asked how to incorporate change into the curriculum without changing the curriculum or how teachers can “just add something” to what they are already doing to bring their classroom into the 21st century.  The short answer to those two questions is, you can’t.  If you are going to build a house, you start with the foundation, not the roof.  The same applies to education.  Click the Read More button . . .



MY questions are, WHY can’t we do new things in the classroom? WHY is the schedule sacred?  WHY do we have to teach to the test?  WHY are we determined to ruin education not only in this country, but around the world, doing and teaching things the same way our parents and grand-parents did fifty to a hundred years ago?

For the most part, our education systems have been obsolete for almost 100 years! WHY do we keep teaching the way we did before the Internet?  WHY do we stick to textbooks that are out of date when they’re published?

We are going to have to re-structure and rebuild our education system from the “ground up” as soon as possible, or face the fact that we are willing to produce students unprepared for life in the 21st century.

Why do we, as educators of the people who will be running the world governments in the not too distant future, fail to realize that what we have been calling education for the last three decades (especially since the beginning of the NCLB Act in the USA), is anything but? 

Why are we so determined to send our children to school and assume that as long as they get good scores on “THE Test”, that they are getting a good education?  Why should we assume that they’re getting a good education, especially when, as educators, we usually recognize the fact that they aren’t?

Do we really want the students we are teaching today to be running the world without the abilities to think critically, innovatively and creatively?  These students are going to be facing problems that we don’t even see as problems today.  We must give them the tools today so they can solve those problems tomorrow.  If we continue schooling our students the way we are now, not only in the United States, but worldwide, humanity could find itself on the endangered species list!

Ms. Shaw and I had the opportunity this last year to travel extensively around the world, visiting schools, and meeting people from ministries of education in several countries.  I was astonished to discover that everywhere we went, no matter which country, what language was being spoken, what subject was being taught, the underlying theme was “We have to get our students ready for “THE Test”!

I agree that some testing is necessary, but not to the point where it causes our students to end up academically short-changed! 

If anyone pays attention to statistics, it’s obvious that the United States has been on a steady decline where academic achievement is concerned.  Why?  Because school administrators, parents, teachers AND students, have lost out to politics and big business. 

Standardized testing is a hugely profitable industry when you stop to think about it, and it’s destroying our abilities to give a relevant, engaging and real-world education to our students.  So much so that some states are starting to opt-out of the NCLB programs, losing federal funding in order to give their students the education they deserve!

This act of defiance on the parts of some states prompted The House Education Committee to move towards legislation that will gut the No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) accountability system and highly qualified teacher definition and in its place give states free rein to establish their own methods to measure school quality and impose turnaround fixes. These bills, the Student Success Act (HR 3989) and Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teaching Act (3990) both need our support.

As educators then, what do we do about the situation?  There are a number of things we should be doing.  One thing we can all do is continue to contact our elected representatives at the state and federal levels and ask them to fix the problems that they helped create.  Another thing we can do is to learn all we can about how to bring our classrooms into the modern world, and that means professional development and a major paradigm shift in the way we teach as well as think about teaching.

It’s not going to be fast, easy or cheap to make the changes (both physical and mental) that we have to make in order to bring our classrooms into the 21st century.

So, I will continue to ride my donkey, pick up the broken lances of MY Don Quixote, and keep betting that one of these days she WILL cause one of those windmills to fall and topple all the others like dominoes!

Humbly,

Jerry Self, uh, I mean Sancho Panza
Executive Manager
21st Century Schools
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe to eNews
    Tweet

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    21st Century Schools
    American History
    Art
    Building Community
    Building Design
    Children's Literature
    Classroom Management
    Creativity
    Curriculum
    Ecoliteracy
    Emotional/Social
    Facilities
    First Day Of School
    Global Competencies
    High Expectations
    Math
    Media Literacy
    MOVE IT
    New York City
    PBL
    Physical Environment
    Play
    Professional Development
    Project-based Learning
    Reform
    Regioal Institute
    Service Learning
    STEAM
    Sugata Mitra
    Workshop

    .

    Archives

    February 2018
    August 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    October 2013
    August 2013
    April 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    January 2011

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Blog
    • 21st Century Schools site
    • LinkedIn Group
    • Curriculum
  • Schools
    • Schools
    • Inner Harbour
    • The Zoo School
    • Anne Frank Inspire Academy
  • 21st Century Schools
  • 21st Century Schools International
  • Global Collaborative Classrooms
  • Subscribe eNews