What Students Need Today

If you were a student in today's classroom - what would you want?

Here are the five things that eSchool News Readers identified as most important from the students in their classes...

5. Interactive Technology

4. Teacher Mentors

3. Innovation

2. Choice

1. Real World Application and Relevancy

It's actually a fairly sound list. It covers the fact that students don't just want technology in the building and being used by their teachers - they want 'interactive technology' that guarantees and warrants their input and participation. Students are constantly bombarded by media coverage and sit as a passive audience member much of the time. School should be the place where they are given the chance to develop their critical thinking skills, technological prowess and their capacity to be innovators and digital 'artists.'

Students continue to recognize the centrality and critical role that a caring teacher plays. Teachers that act as a mentor to students guide them in decision-making and explain both choice and consequence. Those of us who are invested in the lives of these children - not just their grades and curriculum progress - we are the very thing needed by these impressionable and vulnerable young global citizens.

Classrooms hold so much potential for choice and real-world application. Think about it. Here is a room full of students who have very little real world experience, and yet, so much opportunity for creativity and innovation. Far from shackled by the constraints of an adult life - these kids must be given the latitude to find their strengths and needs in a safe place where learning is expected. They should be exposed to the choices and environments that breed brilliance and consolidate caring.

Our role, as teachers, is to prepare students for their lives by giving them the skills to succeed independently as responsible and caring global citizens. How could this happen if all we see is reporting dates and unit tests? Schools are incredible places where life has stood back and waited until a time when students are thrust upon it and all its challenges. We, teachers, are charged with the duty (in concert with parents) to build a child that will succeed. Our most important failure is only in failing to recognize this.

Give them the surveys. Listen to their concerns. Answer them honestly. Be that mentor.

How We Can Unlearn Our Students

A recent news story on CNN entitled "Unschoolers learn what they want, when they want," brings many questions to the forefront of any educational reform to the public school system. These Sudbury schools allow students to follow their curiosity and internal drive for learning in a way that puts life experiences at the pinnacle of the learning paradigm.

At a time when public education is experiencing further budget cuts, there are many things needed to restore public confidence and prevent more families from deciding that it is in their child's best interests to attend alternative or private schools.

Our students should be driving their own learning. The Ontario Curriculum is a foundation of knowledge and baseline content that should serve as a springboard for inquiry and experience in the pursuit of cultivating 'self-directed learners.'

Unschooling is a terrific climate to better meet the interests of our naturalist intelligence students (in Gardner's multiple intelligence theory). It is also a terrific opportunity to differentiate the environment and process for our students in a differentitated instruction teaching model.

So why can't we - in public school's - adopt approaches such as this and experiment with our own approaches to instruction and learning? Well, we can. There are many teachers out there that will quickly step forward as testers of these models and 'guinea pigs' for these educational experiments. With the right combination of support, funding, time, and even modeling, there are incredible prospects to revamp and retool our public education system's model for learning.

If we are to show the public that their options for private and alternative schooling are not 'cutting edge' or 'revolutionary,' but rather, that they mirror our public schools - only with a hefty price tag - not only can we restore confidence in our system, we can also meet the needs of our students in exciting and inspirational ways.

Unschooling holds that there needs to be an undoing of our school's work. Let's re-school the unschools by showing them that we are also ready to move forward and meet the 21st century with vigor and curiosity ourselves as leaders and educators.

Given the right publicity and media attention and we could have more families opting in to their right to a publicly-funded education; instead of footing the bill to find a service that they feel fills a void. We expose and address that void; we will gain the respect and momentum of a public shifting back to our classrooms with confidence and trust.

Ignite. Incite. Inspire. - The Book Released!

I have written and published my first book based on this online blog and some other writing I have done in the past six months. I will be removing some of the posts on this site, but they are all still available in the book (aptly named "Ignite. Incite. Inspire.").

This blog will continue with new topics and discussions that will largely tackle technology and classroom support issues. I hope to continue to offer something to the teaching world online and look forward to your continued support with this blog.

To check out a preview of the book, there is a feature in the right margin of this page. You can sample some of it or go directly to the BLURB Bookstore (if you're interested in buying a copy).

Thanks again,

Neil