Month: May 2016

Education Imagination

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

innovationkidsI suspect that virtually everyone who has been a teacher has thought of creating a new kind of school. Most of us never get beyond the dreaming phase but now and again a brave soul founds an innovative center for learning and does quite well. The rest of us lie awake at night making plans that will never reach fruition.

My imaginary school is very different from most that exist today. It focuses on the diverse needs of both teachers and students. It begins with the philosophy that flexibility is a must and that there is no one size fits all way of teaching or learning. To that end students and educators in my world would be able to choose the hours when they wish to actually be in attendance at the school. Every child would need to be present for a particular number of hours per week to fulfill curriculum requirements but would be free to set the times that work best within a fairly liberal timeframe. For example, a particular pupil may not want to begin the day until nine or ten in the morning. That would be fine as long as he or she remained in classes for at least six or seven hours based on specific academic needs. Even starting the school day at noon would be permissible since there would be classes even in the nighttime hours, making full use of the facilities, resources, and community support. Since the pupils would be present at various hours of the day and night, teachers might also choose the schedules that works best for them, including working part time if so desired. Imagine a brilliant mathematics teacher coming in after working at NASA to teach a group of advanced mathematics teachers in the evening. Think of possibilities like offering  a four day school week.

The schedules might be a bit crazy to design but I’m certain that they would be possible with a bit of imagination. I have always felt that the traditional school hours favored those who are morning people and were set mostly to provide working parents with a place to put their children so that they might get to their jobs. The rest of us who prefer a later rising time have to drag ourselves around all day attempting to be perky when we are actually ready to tear someone’s head off because our natural sleep pattern isn’t being nurtured. In the more perfect world that I envision everybody is at school when it feels best, not based on someone else’s idea of how things should work.

I also quite toy with the idea of having school terms for two months and then breaking for a month so that there is vacation time year round, summer, fall, winter and spring. For those students who require extra instruction or desire additional enrichment there would be intersessions that teachers or other professionals would volunteer to coordinate, providing an additional source of income for anyone who prefer to work most of the year. They also present opportunities to develop internships for high school students with special talents and interests that they want to share.

Everyone has different modes of learning. In most schools teachers create lessons that draw on a number of methodologies hoping to include as many needs as possible. Instead of throwing a wide net and hoping to reach each individual, my school would assess every student to determine exactly which processes work best for them and then match them with teachers and programs that cater to their distinct learning styles.

All too often students struggle to learn when all that they need is an opportunity to have concepts presented in a manner that most closely matches the way in which their brains process information. I once had a student who needed time to think without interruption. She struggled whenever there was a great deal of sound or movement in the classroom. Given a quiet environment and teaching in a modulated tone she excelled. When she had mastered the material she enjoyed tutoring other students as a way of reviewing. By explaining concepts to her peers she reinforced her own knowledge and developed relationships and team interactions that did not work for her in the earlier stages of cognition. Her success was predicated on allowing her to be more solitary in the beginning and gradually bringing her into a group setting when she as her comfort level rose. Over time her need for isolation became more and more diminished. By realizing her needs for periods of quiet reflection she became willing to take risks that would have at one time frightened her. We need to be able to help every student flourish like this young lady by emphasizing the teaching styles that tap into their curiosity and the natural processing of their brains.

So much time is wasted during every school day. There are too many study halls where little or nothing is accomplished other than keeping the students contained for an hour. Advisory sessions and homerooms designed just to take care of business demand too much time. Home schooled students often cover the required curriculum in half of the time that it takes in a traditional classroom. That is because we don’t use the minutes and hours wisely and we too often ask more of our teachers than we should. We need to find aides to watch children at recess, particularly those who might teach them a new physical skill or work with them to develop healthier habits. Teachers should have access to more time to develop lessons or meet with parents or their peers. The same is true of other kinds of duties as well. By the end of a school day teachers have spent hours monitoring the cafeteria or standing in the parking lot as children arrive and leave. If we want our educators to be truly professional then we should not ask them to perform such tasks. We are missing opportunities to use their skills for tutoring or enriching their pupils.

I would like for all students at my school to create capstone projects at regular intervals during the course of the educational process. What they choose for their focus would be entirely based on their individual interests. Rubrics would be designed to insure the quality of the final products. As the children grow older the demands for their products would increase. They might continue to further develop their research or pick something different each time. The senior year products would require that they exhibit elements of writing, public speaking, mathematics and the scientific method.

Instead of simply having end of course exams all students would also have the option of creating a research paper, a product, or a solution for a specific problem within a particular subject. I’ve known many students who exhibit far greater understanding of the concepts that they have studied when given the opportunity to demonstrate real world skills. Mock trials, debates, film making and artistry are much more meaningful ways to measure learning than answers on a multiple choice test. Students enjoy showing their creative talents and as teachers we often discover hidden skills in our kids when we provide them with alternative methods for showing what they have learned.

I suspect the crazy quilt of learning that I have described sounds like the raving of a teacher who has gone mad. I know all of the protestations that are undoubtedly going through people’s minds as they think of the many ways that my ideas will never work in the real world, but this was after all a dream formed over decades of working in classrooms. I believe that we have to be willing to try new ways of educating our children if we are ever to really improve our schools. We must consider the needs of both our students and our teachers and be willing to take risks to make our classrooms happier and more productive places. We are killing the innate curiosity that we humans have in the traditional and homogenized environments that exist in far too many of our educational centers. We are losing the most valuable of our resources and we’ve got to be willing to try new ways of reaching those very precious minds. Thank goodness we have pioneers who are out there right now developing new theories that may one day revolutionize education. You’ve just read a few of my ideas. What are yours?

Imagine the Future

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

opte.orgI grew up in an era when technology was still more or less within the realm of science fiction. When my father brought the first television into our home we made it the center of our family universe. It sat in its own room, dominating a wall, with chairs arranged in a semi-circle so that everyone might have a good view of the tiny screen. We watched the black and white images on that little square of light as though we were viewing the work of a magician. It was a far cry from listening to radio programs as we had previously done. The outmoded radio was moved to a dark corner and replaced by the more modern T.V. as the premiere source of entertainment.

Back then the television broadcast hours were limited as were the number of channels. Each evening the playing of our national anthem signaled the down time for programming. A strange looking test pattern lit up the screen until the next morning. We had no way of knowing that the shows that we watched would one day appear to be so amateurish or that the dull shades of grey would eventually be replaced with living color. We simply marveled at the wonder of the experience. A whole world of products were created to enhance our newest past time. There were T.V. trays to hold our food if we wanted to combine dining with viewing. Enterprising companies even created frozen dinners that only had to be popped into the oven to heat up while we consumed more and more of our time in front of the strange little boxes that so entertained us.

Of course my mother was far more circumspect about this marvelous new invention. We still had to eat homemade food at the kitchen table each evening and we were only allowed to watch one program per day. My father, on the other hand, was so fascinated that he often spent hours laughing hysterically at the comedies that were the bread and butter of those early days.

Eventually, of course, televisions became ever bigger and better as did the variety of what we might view. Color and high definition images allowed us to feel as though we were actually present in the places being shown. Today televisions are no longer just the domain of the family room. They might be found in any number of locations in the house. Interestingly, there are still channels that show the oldies from my youth and I have to admit that some of them are actually quite good even without all of the bells and whistles available today.

I am also from the time when writing a research paper for a particular class was a very complex process. It always required copious amounts of time spent in a library culling through a card catalog and leafing through dusty books and magazines. There were no copy machines or printers or computers or Internet or any of those things. Instead we came armed with index cards on which we hand wrote the information that seemed to be pertinent to our topic. It was tedious and time consuming and most often took place over a series of visits to several different libraries. So many sunny Saturdays and Sundays were spent inside windowless rooms searching for information.

Then came the writing process which was generally done on lined paper by hand. Editing involved scratching sentences and phrases out or using arrows to add ideas. It was a miracle if any of it was legible by the time that the typing began. Then the fun really started as we prayed that our fingers would hit the correct keys on the first strike. If we made a mistake it required carefully using whiteout fluid which the pickiest teachers didn’t want to see. I recall once taking more than twenty hours to complete the typing of a paper to the specifications of one of my professors. I don’t want to even discuss the problems associated with creating footnotes. Such memories send me into a state of unmitigated anxiety.

When computers with word processing software came along I felt as though I had died and gone to heaven. The ability to create a rough draft and then hone it until it was perfect was a godsend. When the Internet made research a more home bound project I was even more excited. A really coherent paper still required work in a library but even that was made more pleasurable with printers and copiers. The old index cards became almost obsolete. When I did use them it was to cut and paste printed pieces of information that was cogent. The new world order freed me from what had once been an odious task.

Now I have the capability of creating a blog while riding along the highway. I type away, able to correct my errors immediately. When I feel that my editing is complete I use the personal hotspot on my phone to get the wifi that I need in order to post my work. I can do this anywhere that I have cell phone coverage, which reminds me of yet another amazing device that we now mostly take for granted. Who knew that one day we would be able to carry a powerful tool like our cell phones in the palm of our hands? I still remember picking up the receiver of our home phone and hearing the conversation of a neighbor who was on the same party line as ours. We have come a long, long way.

The world is a truly amazing place and for those of us who have watched its evolution over the past many decades there is still a sense of awe at what we humans have managed to invent. I have seen so many things come to fruition that once seemed impossible. I now find myself believing that we haven’t yet seen the best of what is to come. Who knows what miracles will unfold in the coming years. If we go back and watch reruns of The Jetsons we might get a few ideas.

I wonder if we will all eventually get off of the grid, using energy sources like wind or solar as a matter of fact. Will there be flying cars? Will a pill or an operation cure mental illness? Will our adventures take us to destinations outside of our home planet? How will we live differently? Will we find newer and better ways of educating our young? It’s fun to imagine and to realize that we have probably only skimmed the surface of what is possible. I only hope that as we gain new insights into better living that we will also be conscious of our relationships with one another. We’ve never quite learned how to get along in total peace and harmony and maybe we never will, but it is nice to imagine what a cooperative world might be. If we can create wonderful things then we should also be able to conceive ideas that bring us more peace and security. We’ve been to the moon and back. Surely we can figure out how to bring harmony to our backyards. Every invention and idea began with a dream. Somewhere right now someone is thinking of the next big thing. We need to encourage anyone who mind works its way outside of the box to envision a better world. We can learn from looking back at the past but our focus should always be in moving forward. Our renaissance continues.