Are you optimistic or pessimistic about education in our country? If you listen to the Main Stream Media, there is nothing good about education. Teachers are terrible, administrators are clueless, and students don't care. We pay teachers too much money, we aren't teaching the right stuff and there is NO HOPE! Everyone has a solution and everyone predicts doom and gloom. They're all experts. Politicians, Parents, and Community members all know the answer. It's kind of like me watching a Yankee game. When they are losing, I should get a call from Girardi asking my advice! Since I'm a fan, I also am an expert.
I may not be an expert in education either, but I live in the trenches and that gives me the right to say: "I love what's happening in education right now!" I refuse to go as far to say the system is broken. Several people, and people I highly respect, say we should scrap the entire system and start over. That is crazy. Do we need to make some changes? Yes. Can we make those changes within our current system? Yes. Will we make the changes and get better? ABSOLUTELY, YES!
Our education system is living in a time where information is available everywhere. I can't believe people are criticizing education for "being behind" in reference to adapting to the available resources we now have. Are you kidding? The speed at which change is occuring is AMAZING. As I surf the web and discover new resources every day, my head is spinning. We live in a social media, connected, information driven world. These areas are exploding at an exponential pace. Who CAN keep up?
I see schools working hard to make changes and making them quickly. At GHS, we went 1 to 1 last year. Many schools in our area are moving in that direction. NO, that's not a silver bullet. Nobody has claimed it would be. Technology isn't an answer, it's a step along the path. Our goal is to provide our students with the best education they can get. With technology we have access to amazing resources to help prepare our students for their future. With these new resources we are ALL hoping to engage our students at a different level. We hope to spark something to excite our kids to solve the problems which face us today.
More important than technology is the amount of deep analysis going on at my school and schools across the country. We are looking for new and better ways to help prepare our kids for the future. While I believe the Common Core miss the point of changes needed in education, it's amazing that educators nationwide are working from the same set of standards. Not only are we looking at what we teach, we are looking at HOW we are teaching. Although I see problems with evaluations systems for educators, it has already been successful. WE are trying to get better, as a profession. With competition, our schools are working to improve. We have done amazing things with less funding and reduced staff levels.
Yep, I AM excited about education. The glass is filling and, in my opinion, will be overflowing! I can't wait to see what this new year will bring.
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