Teachers Are Learners, Too

When I found this on a blog, I felt compelled to share with others.

drop.io: simple private sharing

This video prompted my introspection regarding my being “in the way of learning.”  How about you?

 
Find more videos like this on Classroom 2.0

Some time ago I encountered the following in Proverbs 18:9: “Whoever is slack in his work, is a brother to him who destroys.” It almost seems–OK, not almost–that this quote is related to conversations I have had with students about their need to be more diligent about their work in order to improve or increase their learning. You mean I wasn’t the first one to think of that. Hmm!

THEN, I noticed in Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat the following quote (an African proverb): Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.

Although Friedman’s context was arguably different from mine, I contend our contexts are at least indirectly related. In today’s world of learning OR teaching, the results of our failure to attend to what needs to be done to best prepare our students for the 21st century may make us (and them) wish we had started “running” when we saw the sun rise over our digitally “flattened” world.

Reading Julie Lindsay’s 2020 Vision… motivates and energizes me to continue what I am doing to prepare students to be successful in the learning/earning world that will likely face them.

I urge you to visit and read Julie’s blog.  Of course, your comments are welcomed.

When is a dead horse really dead?

If you are a middle school social studies teacher, check this out.  What is your response?

Here’s One Way!  Is it THE way?

Schools like this?  How cool would that be?

Have you ever read a book (about education) that “says” what you wish you would/could have said half as well?  Here it is–ONLY CONNECT, by Dr. Rudy Crew!  If you are responsible for learning–we all are, both ours and others’–you must read Dr. Crew’s practical, effective presentation of “The Way To Save Our Schools.”

Although those who visit this blog site can count on reading numerous “look what I found” entries I have gleaned from this book, we all should buy a copy and connect with Dr. Crew’s practical provisions about teaching and learning for ourselves.

The first nugget, quoted from Only Connect:  “The four qualities of a mature and conscious contributor to society are

1. Personal Integrity
2. Workplace Literacy
3. Civic Awareness
4. Academic Proficiency”

“When we talk about education right now, we still concentrate on the last one, the academics, just as we did at Meadowbrook almost forty years ago, and consider the other three as somehow outside of the discussion.  THAT is our central educational mistake.”

There’s more, but you really need to read it yourself.  After you have begun to read the book, I look forward to your providing comments to the blogs related to Dr. Crews’s writing. 

I recently “found” this slide-show prepared and distributed by Victoria Davis on her “Cool Cat Teacher Blog”.   All teachers should watch and re-watch!

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In a February 14 entry at Will Richardson’s blog (Weblogg-ed) I noticed with much interest the following:

“Our kids’ futures will require them to be:

• Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.”
• More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information.
• More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world.
• Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids.
• More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically.
• Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice.
• More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world.
• Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.

There’s more, obviously. But I’m curious. What would you add? Or what would you push back against?”

Based on the other reading and listening I am doing, I believe Will is on target.  My question:  How are we in education doing at preparing our students for this future?