Duty, Power, and Responsibility

Photo courtesy of br0.

It is elusive now. That moment when I knew I wanted to teach children has blended into the very marrow of my life. It has become a part of the essence that makes me complete, but I know that there must have been a specific moment. Perhaps it was the time my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Hawkins, took me into the hall to give me a lesson about what it meant to grow into a man someday. Maybe it was the moment that Mr. Lamphear made me believe that I had I needed to use my potential because I had a duty to my fellow human beings. Maybe it was the first time I heard Uncle Ben whisper to Peter, "With great power comes great responsibility." Or maybe it was the host of teachers who were Silvertounges and made the fantasy worlds in books come to life through the power of their words. They made the truth spring out of the thin air and they taught me to look for the commonalities that bring us all together. Each of those was a moment that could have been the one that made me want to recreate that experience for a new generation.

I am not sure though that it can be that neatly defined; perhaps that is the reason the specific moment I decided to enter the classroom eludes me. There are some moments like the first time I really met my wife, the birth of my children, the passing of my father, that were burned into my soul in an instant and changed my life with their vibrance and power, but the commitment to my profession has been built upon a lifetime of experiences that have brought me to where I am now...and that is part of why I am writing today...

The commitment that I made to become a teacher was not undertaken lightly. I weighed very heavily what I had to offer before going down this path. The consequences of having a poor teacher in the classroom are too heavy to play with. I thought long and hard about whether or not I would be setting students up for success better than the other people around me. I wanted to make sure that I would not be harming children by entering the classroom. I wanted to make learning come alive. I wanted to read the characters out of the book, like SilverTongue, and engage students in the world that they are living in, a world that has so much to offer. 

So, here I am writing a post about educational reform and have spent half the time talking about my past...but, you see, the past is important. You, just like my students, need to know who I am and why I am here before I tell you what I see in the future. You need to know that I am a passionate man with a family, children of my own, a lifetime's worth of experiences, and a die-hard commitment to my profession. In a time where teachers are seen as others, it is important to see the people beneath the titles, because we are all human. In a time of political ads that focus on the negatives and what the other side isn't doing, it is important to stand up and explain who you are instead of who the other guy isn't. I am a teacher, I am a parent, I am a student, I am a hero to some, and on midterm day I can be a very scary individual. I am also an idealist. 

In my graduate program we talked a lot about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The basic premise is that our students are all individual learners. If we can accept that fact and drink in the unique strengths and weaknesses of our students, we can imbue our instruction with opportunities for all to succeed. We also talked a lot about Differentiated Instruction (DI) which is the practical application of UDL. DI is creating opportunities for students to access and demonstrate content knowledge in a multitude of ways. Technology is what allows this to happen easily within a classroom because technology can help a teacher modify an assignment for 33 students in a single classroom. 

Okay, this has been around for a while though right? The idea that learners are different, that they have different needs, and that technology can help us meet those needs, those ideas have been around for decades. So if it has been around for decades, how can we call it reform? 

Photo courtesy of edududas.

Re-form to me means to take something that has been around for decades and to make it better by adjusting the way you approach it. To some people right now, reform means going towards a standardization model...for others it means to allow for complete control by small groups...to others it means allowing corporate interests into the schools...  I think that we need something else. I think that we need a new understanding of what an educated individual looks like. We need to look at more than the content someone knows. We need to look at more than what the curriculum is. We need to look at more than what we have done in the past. We need to take education and look at what could be and stop complaining about why our dreams can't become realities. We need to re-form our schemas to allow for an optimistic future.

In that vein...here is my vision:

Imagine for a moment a classroom of students debating the nature of literacy in the 21st century. They are asking to sit in circles and talk in small groups about a novel that deals with access to information. They are debating the benefits and obstacles of school filtering systems and are discussing whether or not their blogs should be public. They are looking at what Montag stands for in Fahrenheit 451 and whether or not they can find a Creative Commons image that truly captures the essence of who he is. They are relating the struggles of this character and the conflicts of this book to the real world topics of censorship and Google and questions being raised by real people about the power and purpose of information...they are posting quotes that symbolize characters on a common wiki and then they are updating their online concept maps so that they can arrange their information in visual ways that show the connections between these various topics...They pull out computers to independently search for information that supports their opinions and they ask each other for support instead of asking me for answers...they reach across the aisle and point to each other's screens and explain how to give real world credit to a source in addition to using correct MLA citation (because this is what is on the test)...

Oh wait...I said I was going to be visionary. What I have described above is my classroom on Wednesday of last week. That isn't really reform...that is reality. So we need to move past the reality I strive for on a daily basis...the ins and outs of creating multifaceted and multileveled activities for my students...the daily balance of individual work to collaborative work to group discussion to individual reflection...the balance of real world versus the standardized testing minimums...the constant struggle between the need for and the lack of resources in my building...and we need to move into a realm where the vision I see in my head can become the future for my students. You see, what I am doing is okay...but it isn't enough...

So...let's try this again...

Education is what our students live and breathe every day. Reforming education would mean that we were making content, presentation, and production of information relevant and meaningful. Our students would be moving past the "Why do we have to learn this?" to the much more powerful, "What kinds of practical applications of this information would make my world/society/school a better place to be and can I try to address those issues for my final exam?" They advocate for themselves and seek out pathsin which to apply this information/knowledge we present to help others locally and on a global scale. They ask for guidance but more often they propose solutions in a variety of ways. The students are asked to help write the tests that measure progress so that they have a voice in making the tests meaningful and relevant to future student populations. Or better yet, the students propose that their worth as students is judged based on their ability to solve issues in the real world with their skills and knowledge.

In a world like this, the students would be held to a much higher standard and they would be making the world a better place while showing that they understand the information they are being presented with. They would synthesize the information from their various classes into a cohesive product/production that would be aimed at providing the world with model citizen scholars. The students would have something substantial that they could continue to contribute to...

And when you come down to it, isn't that what we want? Don't we want our students to contribute more than a simple bubbled in form? Don't we want them to invest in their world and give back? According to centuries worth of observation and current brain research, each student has something to offer that is unique and special, and if we took the time to really let each student give that little piece of themselves, wouldn't we all be better off? There is nothing standard in the amazing and awesome. That is part of what makes amazing and awesome such powerful concepts. Isn't that what we want our students to be?

Photo courtesy of enimal.

So...re-form...Perhaps the place it has to start is with us, the educators and parents and coaches and models...Maybe we need to remember that bucking the system is how the system got started in the first place. It is time for a revolution. It is time for action. It is time for commitment. We have a duty to our students. "With great power comes great responsibility." We need to invent the ideas to put on the page and play SilverTounges to bring them out into the real world. We need to stand up and say that accountability that loses humanity is not enough for educational reform. Our students are students with valuable contributions to make...true educational reform would imply that we were willing to give them the opportunity to help create the world that they are going to be living in. True educational reform would allow students to contribute in meaningful ways with each other to solve the real issues that they are going to be faced with. As Chris Lehman said at ISTE 2010, "What if we stopped telling kids that high school is preparation for the real world and conviced them that it is the real world?"

True edcuation reform would give students the motivation, the freedom, and the support they need to become active participants in their world. True educational reform would focus on bringing the laughter back into the classroom...because learning should be exciting, challenging, and fun.

You see, what made me want to be a teacher wasn't my test scores and accountability for my actions as a student. What made me want to be a teacher was truly believing that I could make a difference and that I could pull those ideas and characters from the pages of the books they lived in. What made me want to be a teacher was having the opportunity to apply my knowledge to the world as a student. What made me want to be a teacher was realizing that education was about people and connections, not the number that signified my knowledge base.

Last Wednesday, my students made a small impact on each other. They interacted with one another and the rest of the world with the intention of coming to a clearer grasp of the importance of words and ideas. They reformed their understanding of what a literate citizen looks like and they enjoyed the deep thinking that they were asked to do. They felt that their individual needs were being met and they felt like they were more than simply sophomores with a score on their backs. They felt involved...they felt engaged...and they felt that that day was a beginning...perhaps it was a moment that will be part of their core...and they will look back and realize that they can't define the moment they felt that they needed to be involved with scholarly conversations about real world issues...

Photo courtesy of hhsara.

Educational reform begins with the belief that we can make difference in the world. It begins with a conversation that focuses on what is possible. There is a moment that is difficult to define, but that sinks into the very core of who we are as we stand up and say that change must happen. That moment becomes one of a number of moments that changes the very course of our lives and the lives of those who must coexist in the world with us. Our students deserve a better education than the established system provides and they deserve to be participants in their own futures. Chris Lehman said it best, "Students should never be the implied object of their own education." We have a duty to our students. They deserve to be the driving force in educational reform and we have the responsibility of creating educational experiences that meet their individual needs. To do that, we need to be able to openly discuss, with complete honesty, the possibilities of educational reform with a positive, optimistic, student-centered focus. To accept the status quo would be to break the promise we made to students when we took up the mantle of educator scholars.