Rigor, Relevance and Relationship

by LeeAnn on December 6, 2011

Our students need a new vision of the three “R’s” – Rigor – Relevance and Relationship. Our children need to be prepared to excel and master the art of learning to learn.

As educators, we need to provide students with the skills that prepare them to solve real world problems while engaging in the art of collaboration and team work. Our children will need to bridge the world community gap and share resources. Their future does not include the option of cutting off from community – locally, nationally or globally. Instead our children must learn how to re-engage community at all levels.

Currently we are boring students to death with endless and meaningless testing. It is time to reinvent and re-role the purpose of education in this century.

What if the role of public education was to develop lifelong learners and contributing members of society? Who have the skills to meet cultural and economic change in a resilient manner? How would that change what is offered in high school?

Our students need the adult community to come together and support our students in being prepared for the world they are about to inherit. To do that our students need:

  1. Relevance – Our students need to get beyond endless theory and repetitive curriculum. They need course work that is relevant to the world and community.
  2. Rigor – Our students need to be stimulated to think critically, problem solve and dig into challenging ideas and positions. Rather than dumbing down offerings, we need to believe students will step up to a high bar of learning IF they see the point and what digging deep will provide.
  3. Relationship – Our students need to learn to learn together. Connecting to members of a learning community provide the skill set to collaborate locally and globally. Our students need to re-learn the lost art of community as community membership is the key of a functional society.

What is happening in your school district? Are students challenged, stimulated and held accountable not for passing tests but for becoming learners?

I challenge you to talk with your schools principal. Ask about their vision of rigor, relevance and relationship. Our students need us to engage in new conversations and new visions of what public education can be. Will you make that call?

Until next time,

 

 

 

LeeAnn

 

(photo: jenlen)

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Learning Community – Cooperation & Collaboration

by LeeAnn on November 29, 2011

I am not sure if you caught the 60 Minutes interview of Hrabowski and the learning community transformation he has accomplished on his college campus. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it.

At the heart of learning communities is the belief that learning to learn together is an essential part of becoming a resilient, life-long learner. We, humanity, share this planet. The time for “I” is passing rapidly. The problems we face won’t be solved by ego, instead will be solved by a dedicated community of learners who value the “we” and who are willing to come together in cooperation and collaboration.

Public schools need to look more like this campus and less like the “sit & get” model of the last century. Students need to demonstrate acquired knowledge by application, synthesis and real-world problem solving, rather than “pen & pencil” tests.

If we want to launch our children into a future where they not only succeed, but thrive, we as adults have to give up the way it has been. All of us – from the school board, parents, community members and school staff – must join a new vision of what the role, goal and purpose of public education is.

With our country as divided in politics, economics and even spirit, will you be the one that catches a new vision? Will you be the one who embraces a new form of cooperation and collaboration with your circle of influence? Will you be the one that demands our children be given the tools that help them meet their future?

Watch the video

What steps will you make towards cooperation and collaboration in your learning community?

Until next time,

learning community

 

 

 

LeeAnn

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The Courage to Engage Learners

by LeeAnn November 22, 2011

If you haven’t read Parker Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach, I highly recommend reading it before this school year is completed. In our mad dash to improve, transform, or reform the educational experience for students we seem to have missed the mark in the role and purpose of education as well as the role [...]

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The Rewards of Staff Engagement

by LeeAnn November 16, 2011

With tight monetary resources, now more than ever, schools need teachers who can and will engage with each other, with their students, with their parents and with ideas and content. Reading this you may say “well of course.” However the culture of education, -the “school of origin,” – if you will, has not valued nor [...]

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21st Century Collaboration & Coaching

by LeeAnn November 1, 2011

While education has started to embrace collaboration, as a whole the idea of coaching in education has been slow to take off. Understanding how coaching impacts developing real and functional collaboration amongst educators IS the necessary skill set for leadership no matter what the role – classroom, building leader or superintendent. The skill set required [...]

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The Role of a Learning Community

by LeeAnn October 25, 2011

Once upon a time in the day of the little red school house, the role of learning community seemed more clear…to teach children how to read, write and do math. Then came along the Industrial Revolution and Ellwood Cubberley  who viewed education as an assembly line; children as the raw material and those unable to [...]

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System Thinking for Learning Organizations

by LeeAnn October 18, 2011

In order to develop a functioning learning community; system thinking must be part of the reflection for the classroom, grade level teams and whole learning community. System thinking reflection begins by clarifying the role and goal of each part we play within the system. Beginning in the classroom, what is the role of the teacher? [...]

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Engaging the Power of Adult Learners

by LeeAnn October 11, 2011

At the heart of adult learning communities are adult learners. Often professional development in school districts for adult learners consists of “sit & get” programs. Instead of engagement and participation, the “staff developer” simply “tells” adult what they need to know. Often I hear about how badly a staff “behaved” in district trainings. All the [...]

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Learning to Learn Together

by LeeAnn October 4, 2011

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.  ~Clay P. Bedford Learning to learn together is a process rather than a task. In order to be part of a learning community, [...]

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Building Parent Advocacy

by LeeAnn September 27, 2011

Advocacy – Building parent advocacy requires first understanding the role of an advocate. While it seems obvious, education has not really known how to develop and collaborate with advocates. In most cases the idea of advocacy has resulted in more adversarial relationships with parents rather than developing powerful partnerships with educators that result in student [...]

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