Most often people choose teaching as a profession because they want to create change… change for the better! Some will even tell you that their own experience was so negative they felt compelled to become “the change” that children need in the classroom.
Do you feel our children deserve more… do they need more? If so the question is… are we delivering instruction in a way that will create this opportunity?
I often wonder why so many graduates are cramming for interviews. Literally, I have witnessed interviewees grab hold of books such as Innovator’s Mindset (George Couros), Teach Like A Pirate (Dave Burgess) and STEAMMakers (Jacie Maslyk) right before interviews in order to gain the edge on hiring.
Why are they cramming?
Do you feel our future teachers continue to prepare the same way as teachers did 5… 10… even 50+ years ago? Are we helping to create change or are we still teaching and learning in a way that is no longer relevant in today’s society?
If we are given the opportunity to create change in education why wait until teachers are graduated and in the trenches to fire them up with incredible learning opportunities?
Let’s look at what current educators are doing to move the world of education forward and in turn pass this practice down to our future educators.
Let’s connect with future teachers.
Let’s make change.
Dave and Shelley Burgess of Dave Burgess Consulting Inc. have gifted education with a platform that works as a springboard for innovative teaching. Are these revolutionary resources accessible to every college student preparing to be a teacher?
If not, we must ask ourselves a very important question… Why are we preparing our future with the same mindset we are trying to alter?
Are we creating experiences for our students? Are we still using the traditional checklist that no longer reflects the future of our students or better yet the future of the work force!?
What is guiding our future teaching practices?
In my opinion, you cannot advance a student’s depth of knowledge with a five day death march of a story that was taken from the required/chosen anthology.
Has anyone asked their students? Do students really want to read the same story over and over for mastery? Mastery of what? Who needs skill when you can memorize the central idea of a story by reading and rereading day after day?
Don’t get me wrong, we are all in tune with Bloom’s Taxonomy and how to embed higher level thinking into the traditional way of learning, but that is simply not good enough anymore! Our children deserve more… they need more and we must deliver our instruction differently to serve them the best possible way. Our children need to be engaged in their learning where by they are empowered to move their education forward by choice and not through compliance.
It is not a free for all… there is accountability for all of us. There is definitely a place and purpose for philosophy, domains, and pedagogy. But who ever said that it had to come from the same mindset and discipline that was used all those years ago. We must have accountability to change with the times! As George Couros of Innovator’s Mindset so eloquently states,
“Change is an opportunity to do something AMAZING!”
Over the last two school years, I have had the privilege of being a virtual cooperating teacher for future educators of Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Education majors are required to take a technology course their freshman year. One of the professors is Dr. Sam Fecich and she is a change agent! She is connecting our future teachers to classrooms while instilling skills for both the future leaders in education as well as the current classroom teacher. Her students are building their PLN (Professional Learning Network) on twitter and engaging in meaningful learning with a variety of resources including books posted above. Dr. Sam, along with the education department of GCC, is making change in current practice… investing in our future!
If we really want to educate future teachers to be AMAZING CHANGE AGENTS we need to communicate at all levels. Colleges, universities, public and private school systems, along with the community and work force… we must sit down at the same table and break bread together. We need to share in the same meal, prepared by the same hands, and with immense compassion and understanding have the conversation that WE share in the responsibility to MAKE CHANGE FOR THE BETTER!
Why?
Because…
When you know better, you do better!
T.R.U.E. G.R.I.T. 