Sentiments On Common Sense

I would like to follow up on my post yesterday. I have been doing a lot of thinking how technology builds a new classroom environment.  I use the word “new” very carefully here, in that we have been using tech in classrooms now for quite a while.  Heck… I used computers in my classroom way back in ’87.  That would be a healthy 22 years ago now.   Nonetheless, tech does move the classroom environment toward a more democratic approach with the direction of learning coming from both the adult and the child (or teacher and student).

Silvia Tolisano at the Langwitches blog wrote a great post on the 29th called “Take the Technology out of the Equation”. This post is worth a read if you have not had a chance to work through her thoughts and the links. It is a well written post that goes to the heart of my beliefs and the point of my “micro”-rant from yesterday.  Her wordle from the post is to the upper left of this post.

In the post she asks a series of questions about learning.

They are:

• How do we teach students how to learn?
• How do we motivate and engage learners?
• How do we create a climate where learning is valued, not test scores or a covered text book?

Yesterday I stated that if we as educators are constantly stuck in the learning skills we will never “…be able to drill down deep in our conversations about higher level thinking, collaboration, problem solving and content creation”.

Let’s think hard here.  It really is common sense. To get past the reasons and excuses and the lack of skills by both the teachers and the students (recognizing both as learners) we as school leaders must focus our organizations on learning and the learning process.  I have said in the past and probably will do again and again, that we are denying our students great learning experiences if we remove the technology component from the learning equation. I believe that technology could be the greatest learning tool ever invented, and it really does flatten the instructional process by involving all members of the learning community in the process.  By gaining the engagment of the learner, we also gain their trust and their passion for learning.

Silvia said it best when when she states:

Maybe we need to be talking about something no one can deny as a priority in our schools: STUDENT LEARNING. Maybe we if we talk on that common ground,  there will be less resistance, more collaboration and communication on how to achieve that.

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I was always told that it was unsafe to be facicious when writing.  Many people don’t get the subtly of the written language, and one might be accused of being a bit… well…. rude, or cruel, or STUPID…. or any other of the many derogatory names that are used in blogs today.  So, when I started reading the article “When “21st-Century Schooling” Just Isn’t Good Enough:  A Modest Proposal” by Alfie Kohn, I had to laugh, giggle and then it made me think. I immediately thought about my colleague and friend Jeff Utecht who states, adamantly, that the 21st Century is 9 years old. When are we going to start teaching the skills necessary be successful in it! 

I have always admired Dr. Kohn. He knows his stuff. He communicates in strong, consistent and understandable terms.  He has a strong sense of humor, and this article is buried in irony, sarcasm and thought-provoking imagery. 

At the end of the article- the last paragraph- which is also published in the February 2009 issue of District Administration he states:

One last point.  We will of course continue to talk
earnestly about the need for a curriculum that features “critical thinking” skills
– by which we mean the specific proficiencies acceptable to CEOs.  But you
will appreciate the need to delicately discourage real critical
thinking on the part of students, since this might lead them to pose inconvenient
questions about the entire enterprise and the ideology on which it’s based.  There’s
certainly no room for that in the global competitive economy of the
future.  Or the present.

The question of the day: Does the readers of District Administration have the critical thinking skills to figure out that he’s trying to make a point?

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