I LOVED Grant Lichtman’s TEDx Talk, I sent it to all our district administrators! Honestly I think I got more out of that than this week's Keri Facer reading. I loved the comment he made that change is hard, “complicated, uncomfortable, and messy” and the connection, that to get our school back to the way Dewey, and Montessori intended it to be, it will be “complicated, uncomfortable, and messy". However, in order to produce “self-evolving learners” we need to become “self-evolving organizations”, ecosystem like organizations. With that said...
As I have mentioned we are preparing to pass a bond that would allow our schools the opportunity to have new collaborative spaces, that offer our students resources for movement building, opinion shaping, and accountability (pg 89). Our worry is that our community (because many are still in the “old school” mindset) will not understand why the change is needed. As much as we can "show and tell" with tours of the spaces, explain how it helps follow our IB program needs, and how education is changing, will they be willing to “help” make the change. Facer says on page 103-104 “we need educational institutes to act as midwives...nurture the capacity for democracy...that we have a responsibility to intervene…”
My belief is that most schools know what their “future-building school” looks like and in order to become “self-evolving organization” they need the support (AKA $) from community/state/local/federal to make it happen. As it has been said here before, there is a great movement for change happening. We ALL see the need for it, sometimes if feels like we have our hands tied though.
I am a huge believer in the “do something” mindset. So, I plan to be a loud voice in the community to pass the bond. I am on the committee that has planed the spaces, and of course as an instructional coach I will be involved in helping the teachers learn how to change instruction to be more inquiry based and student centered (because if not, you just have a lot of cool furniture), and of course I will vote Yes!
“...If we fund today, as we funded yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow…”
Facer, Keri. Learning Futures: Education, Technology, and Social Change. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.
