I much prefer strolling slowly down a garden path, with a few hills just to get my heart rate up a little. I can't see why everyone is so interested in making education a race instead of the journey it really is. Where did we get this obsession? Maybe it's something about getting older, I don't know. I just can't buy into the idea that racing students ahead should be my main focus in life. I want my time on earth to be meaningful, purposeful, enjoyable and savored. That's also how a good classroom should feel in my opinion.
I don't see education as a competition either, instead a crazy, messy, flexible collaboration that happily moves in directions you as the teacher hadn't even thought about. Every teacher knows this buzz that goes on in their classroom. To me it feels like it's alive. The hum of kids excitedly sharing their stories with each other, reading together, or working on a creative project. It's an energy that feeds my soul. I think it might be the meaning of life--that along with a book I was reading to my granddaughter this morning called Hug.
No, I don't have data to back it up unless you count lots of years of trying different methods to find my own voice in the classroom. To me, there are a lot of things about good teaching that can't really be measured in the traditional sense. But there's no doubt to anybody who's ever done the job that you can feel when something is working and when it's not.
I went to a technology conference last week. There were so many cool things to learn about. I went to a session about Google Earth and was blown away. I heard from a school district where every student is given an ipad and they have pretty much gone paperless. I learned more about clickers and all kinds of gadgets that teachers all over the country are trying out with their students. I know that using technology is one of the best ways to get my students really excited about a project.
I had to share my time at the conference with another teacher because our school had only one ticket. I went the second day, and all people were talking about was the keynote speaker from the day before. It was obvious to me that I had missed the best part of the conference. The speaker's name was Dr. Yong Zhao. After I got home I went online to look up more information about him. I wanted to find out more about his teachings. I found articles he's written, transcriptions from interviews, and excerpts from similar keynotes he had given around the country. Don't you just love it when you get a great surprise that you weren't expecting? Well that's how his teachings were to me. I went to a conference about technology and found another voice in education that speaks to me.
He is the Presidential Chair and Associate Dean for Global Education, College of Education at the University of Oregon. He also serves as the director of the Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE). He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education.
Until December, 2010, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence.
His research interests include educational policy, computer gaming and education, diffusion of innovations, teacher adoption of technology, computer-assisted language learning, and globalization and education.
Dr. Zhao was born in China. He speaks about the differences between education in China, other countries, and the U.S. He said that American students have always been behind in tests scores, it's nothing new. According to him nobody should really be surprised because it's been that way for many years. Other countries have always scored higher than our kids. But he also said that countries like China and India are now trying to change their educational systems to emulate the United States and adding more creativity into their own rigid test dominated systems. They have found that they are turning out kids who can score well on tests, but can't think. Sound familiar?
He explained that even though our students don't score as high on the international tests, the U.S. has always remained the leader in patents obtained largely because of the educational system here which emphasizes creativity so much more than other countries. Other countries focus on tests only, and their students become very adept at them, but don't know how to use the skills they've memorized in other ways. The future of our country will depend on the ability to create the next new intellectual property. He asks who will invent the next Facebook, or Google? He believes it's more likely to be an American because of our educational system.
I was so excited to hear him say that we shouldn't be focusing so much on standardization, but that the skills our kids will need for the future are right brain skills such as design, and story telling. That's exactly what my own years of teaching have taught me. He added that it's kind of crazy that we would want to go backwards and narrow our focus so much. Just when other countries are changing their systems to try to be more like ours, we're trying to go backwards. He said that so much standardization is actually a detriment to achieving equity in education, because by focusing only on reading and math we are judging them as the most important things, and leaving out so many other important skills like the arts, and social sciences. It also leaves many students out of the conversation if they are talented in other areas than the ones which are tested.
Collaboration was another skill he explained will be very necessary in the future. He said we should change our paradigm, stop seeing education as a competition with other countries. Globalization has changed things drastically. He explained that we should consider how we can work together with other countries to create the future. I think this is very true for teachers too. That's why I'm opposed to the idea of merit pay because I fear it will lessen collaboration instead of fostering it.
According to Zhao, another difference between American students and students from many other countries is confidence. Americans are far more confident than students in other countries. Our kids believe they can do anything. That serves them and our country well.
One of my favorite things that he talked about in is speech was this. If you go to Singapore, or China and ask kindergarten students what they want to be when they grow up, they all say a scientist, or a doctor. He said when he asks his kindergarten daughter what she wants to be when she grows up, she says emphatically--an elephant! Priceless!
So maybe I don't have fancy degrees and tons of research to back up what I believe should be going on in my classroom. But it was really nice to hear an expert speak to my heart and reinforce that my own hard earned observations have merit. Somehow I got the feeling that Dr. Zhao knows the meaning of life. Hug!