These days, it seems like everyone is talking about how to fix education. Open the paper, turn on the news shows, and you can see billionaires, businessmen, union leaders, former superintendents, and even the occasional teacher and parent talking about how we have to fix our schools. There is, however, a powerful constituency that is missing from the dialogue:
The kids.
I think it is time to listen to what they need their schools to be.
To that end, a bunch of us have gotten together to launch The Great American Teach-In. On May 10th, we are calling on those same billionaires, businessmen, union leaders, former superintendents, teachers and parents to pay attention to the kids as they write their Declarations of Education.
What is the Great American Teach-In?
A day to remind ourselves and our students that citizenship means asking questions, finding answers and standing up for what you believe in...and that education must mean that too.
Every classroom, every student, every school...draft a declaration of educational rights.When it comes to education, what are the truths you hold self evident? Let's make time to talk about these ideas within our learning communities.
Then, let's document these truths, and continue the hard work of making a high quality public education accessible to all who want it.
We have a goal -- 100,000 students writing their declarations of education on May 10th. Can you imagine? 100,000 students all telling the adults: "This is how we learn best. This is what we need from our schools. This is what we need." We want the students to consider some essential questions about schools and learning:
So what can we, the adults, do?
Sign up and sign your students up.
Look at the lesson plans, share them with the kids, help students find their voices on May 10th, and then share those voices with the world.
And spread the word: blog about it; tweet about it; tell your colleagues and your community about it. (The hash-tag is #teachin11.)
You can even write your own Declarations of Education.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Let's have conversations in every community about what we dream our schools can be. And let's make sure that we start those dreams with the dreams, hopes and needs of the children we teach.
Follow Chris Lehmann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chrislehmann
Why not? After all, the feedback will be directly from the "front lines." Things have never changed with the same old way of doing things.
As Albert Einstein once said, "We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them." I agree, let's use a higher level of thinking, and those ideas may come from the children.
just kidding.
as an organizational consultant for over 2 decades I saw the potential we have in humans as workers and as students.
our taylorism/skinnerism (ie fear based) leadership and educational models have lost their luster.
we are still teacher and individualistic based in our approach to education and we dont have a clue what teacher based means.
I watched one of the top elementary educational systems in the world teach their children how to learn and teach others in small groups. the class size was 35 but the number of teachers hired were at a 20 to one ratio. each teacher got a break during the day from this surplus of teachers to do lesson plans and the students were taught to teach other students.
never work in america we are cost reduction based not quality and tooooooooo many administrators.
the best students learned (took 4 years to teach this) how to share and mentor others and one of the best ways to learn is by teaching it in small groups, 4 to 6 students. we dont teach children how to teach and mentor others; we are a competitive society every student for themself' for best grades.
our educational system is broken as our nation is broken, but we refuse to want to consider a new paradigm. even the professors are stuck in this paradign paralysis. I know I used to be one of them.
Love what you are doing, and it's very interesting given my experience a few days ago with some passionate and dedicated kids from a local high school.
They are looking to transform their school and LA USD as a whole into an innovative, inspirational school system where kids are known as people.
I could recite all the details here, but much easier to just give you a link to my blog:
http://richarddemato.posterous.com/want-to-transform-la-usd-and-support-educatio
Perhaps there's a way for these kids to be a part of what you're up to?
Thanks for all that you're doing to transform education!
Best,
Richard