Vision

If I ran our school system . . . WOW – what a HUGE thought! I really don’t want to run anything more than my classroom. Most days, that’s more than enough. However, my personal vision for every school is based on resources. When we hear this educational buzzword, we mostly think of the “stuff” of teaching, from computers, projectors, and smart boards to buildings and funding. Yes, those are necessary and in far too short supply in most districts. However, far more important, from my viewpoint, is the human resources that we all need to succeed.

First and foremost comes the students themselves, the one resource we adults so vastly underestimate. The further I go in my career, the more I realize the depth and breadth of abilities and experiences that each student brings to their own learning. When empowered and coached, most students have more than enough capacity to succeed. We need to start and end educational planning with them. As frustrating and time-consuming as it can be, students need to own their learning. Project-based and competency-based systems seem to do this best. Once a sound, skills- and standartds-focused structure is established, students have more choice, more freedom, and more ownership than in traditional teacher-directed platforms. Classrooms become learning labs, where trial and error lead to adaptation and growth. I prefer block scheduling with this model, because it allows time for collaboration and experimentation, with teacher modeling and coaching built in. Homework then takes the form of real-world deadlines to master the process and create an end product that displays the learning. Will every student succeed? I’d love to think so, but reality says that there will always be a few who choose not to dig into their own resources, but rather feed on excuses and past hurts. This model gives more students the opportunity to succeed, learning to recognize, value, and trust their internal resources while being supported by key adults and adaptable tools.

The most successful students have deep people resources. Key adults can be parents, teachers, staff, community members, mentors, and a host of others. Teachers are certainly the most visible resource. Our teachers need to be skilled in their content, but even more skilled in building relationships. They first must establish a community where it’s OK to try and fail. If you haven’t been to “Capturing Kids’ Hearts,” I HIGHLY recommend that training. It provides invaluable tools to foster trust, connectedness, and student empowerment. Second, teachers need to be coaches, not unapproachable experts. We need to guide students in vision and goal setting, and then provide the support to get there. If the learning we offer is meaningful and “real,” the majority of students WILL engage. Teachers also need to embrace the other adults in kids’ lives (and connect them to many more). So often, I am threatened when a student goes to someone else for help. Why is that? Am I really the only authoritative voice on the Vietnam War? We need to help students see the many other people in their lives who can contribute to their growth by requiring/directing outside influences on projects. This can be as simple as having your Math team partner teach the computation side of the Physics equation you’re teaching or as complex as matching students up with community partners for interviews, job shadowing, and internships. Teaching students this interdependence, that none of us has all the answers (but that we CAN find them) is key.

In all of this, technology can be used to maximize student engagement and enhance their skill sets. First, students need access to some sort of computer every hour of every day. Most teachers are chained to our laptops, but wish to limit the “distraction” of computers in our classrooms. I am NOT an expert in this, and I don’t wish to diminish the very real struggles that technology brings. However, we need to get over ourselves and realize that it’s here to stay. One of the top skills we can teach is appropriate technology use, from the where and when to the how and the what. If teaching students to self-manage is the key to traditional classroom success, adding technology to the mix only magnifies this need. Again, it’s time-consuming and frustrating at times, but a well-thought-out, consistently-implemented/enforced tech policy will benefit EVERY classroom in your system. Do you have an LCD projector? Have the kids run it, and teach them about font size, appropriate places to find images, and laws about copyright. Are you using the lab for research? Give them a webquest to find basic sources and experiment with citation-builder sites before they ever start their papers. Does each student have a laptop in his or her hands? Train them, from day one, that access is a privilege that bears responsibility. As soon as you confiscate one that was being misused and keep it for two days, many of the others will shape up. Better yet, give clear instructions on an engaging task before they ever open the laptop, preventing at least most of the misdirection from ever occurring. Finally, we must admit that, in most cases, these “digital natives” know far more than we do and are much more adaptable. We need to help them see their own tech-savvy resources, and hone those skills by integrating technology into our projects and assessments far more than we currently do. This brings the vision back around to resource #1: the learners themselves. They really are the beginning, middle, and end of the learning process; it’s our job to make them realize it.