Teachers Are Learners, Too

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.

Please visit this blog–Are You Sick Of High Paid Teachers.  I will be interested to read your comments about the thoughts you experienced as you read the blog and comments.

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?

One of the advantages of using a ‘gathering’ service such as Google Reader, is that we can “automatically” receive new/current postings from a variety of authors.  One such author, David Warlick, recently posted “A Path to Becoming a Literate Educator“.  I invite you to read and cosider his 12 steps for success as a 21st-Century educator.

The video linked here may stir some argument.  Be that as it may, but the creativity issue is one worth significant consideration.   Those attuned to the requirements for 21st century success list creativity amont the top five of qualities needed for our current students to succeed in life after school.  Wouldn’t it seem reasonable for us to help them practice their creativity now?

While cleaning out a file yesterday, I found a copy of the following:

What is the teacher?
A guide, not a guard.

What is discovery?
Questioning the answers, not answering the questions.

What is the process?
Discovering ideas, not covering content.

What is the goal?
Open minds, not closed issues.

What is the test?
Being and becoming, not remembering and reviewing.

What is the school?
Whatever we choose to make it.

–Alan A Glatthorn

Please go to and read this blog. I hope you have a similar response to mine.

If what we are doing isn’t getting us where we want (or need) to go, I wonder why we keep doing it.

One has to wonder how we can think applying more pressure, raising the standards, increasing the amount of professional development (time taken out of the school day/year), adding curriculum pieces (Character educaiton looms as just one example of an increasing area of need.), increasing the amount of testing time (again time taken away from teaching) can bring about improved results.

It seems to me we are quickly approaching the place where educators could justifiably say, “What we are being asked to do just isn’t possible the way we are currently being asked to do it.”

Add to that the very different “product” that will be required in the work world in the 21st century “information/technology age”, and even I can grasp that something needs to change.
In my school I have been lobbying for more time with my students by suggesting we make adjustments in our school-day schedule, and I promise not to give up on that.

Now I have decided that will not be enough. Therefore, I am proposing that we enact a significant departure from “what we have always done.” I believe we now need to move to year-round school. Like it or not, there is no other way we can accomplish what we are being asked to accomplish. My idea of year-round school is an additional 45 days of student contact time. Those 45 days (perhaps some of the other 180 also) could (maybe even should) look very different from the current seat-time approach.

One thing I know–if what we are doing isn’t getting us where we want (or need) to go, we probably shouldn’t keep doing it.

One of the keynote speakers at the NECC conference I attended in March, quoted Wayne Gretsky, hall of fame hockey star, as giving an interesting response when asked “What do you think sets you apart from other hockey players?”

“The Great One” replied, “I skate to where the puck is going. Others skate to where it is.”

What analogous application might this quote have in education? What qualities might we find in an educator who “skates to where the puck is going” compared to/contrasted with the educator who “skates to where the puck is?”

Check out this essay!