The change all our schools need

This was taken from ditch that textbook... Excellent points, and seems common sense, yet teachers cling to an industrial model for education like it is the be all of humanity... Why?

1. “Why does school stink? Because most of what students do is based on compliance.”

For decades, schools have adopted and pushed a culture of “do exactly as the teacher says.” It was a very desirable trait in employees for many, many years. But the world has changed, and so have the needs for the workforce. Employers are looking for communicators, creative thinkers and problem solvers. A culture of compliance won’t produce those attributes.

2. “Schools should be democratic, messy, loud places where kids are everywhere.”

Lehmann speaks of his joy in walking around the Science Leadership Academy armed with his iPhone taking pictures. There’s a lot to photograph because students are everywhere — creating, testing, tinkering and trying. He’s right. Schools should be democratic: students should have a voice and input in what the school looks like, stands for and teaches them. They should be messy: taking risks and giving up control are messy but can be very fruitful. They should be loud: team work and collaboration doesn’t happen in silent rows.

3. “Classes should be bridges, not silos.”

Learning doesn’t have to happen inside the four walls of the classroom anymore. Collaborative tools let students share ideas in blogs, publish their work in websites, connect with other countries through video chats and work with others around the world in shared documents. We can break down the walls and broaden our students’ horizons, or we can keep the walls up and fence them in.

4. “Technology should be ubiquitous, necessary and invisible.”

Technology can’t be a class or a special day in class. If we use it that way, it becomes the focal point instead of a tool to help us achieve more. It should be ubiquitous — everywhere — especially where it can make what we do more efficient or empower us to do more. It should be necessary, because so many things we can do with technology can’t be done without it. It should also be invisible; when schools work with technology and don’t think about it anymore, it is truly integrated.

5. “Data-driven requires good data — and good data ain’t cheap.”

So many schools base so many decisions on results of standardized tests. They can provide some solid data, but it’s not always the best, and it’s not always what schools really need. Many of them don’t give any indication of how students will perform on those critical skills mentioned earlier: communication, problem solving and creative thinking. Schools should invest — and by invest, I mean time and effort as much as money — in good data.

6. “We’ve got to build caring institutions. We teach kids, not subjects.”

Lehmann suggests that math teachers quit saying they teach math, and that first grade teachers quit saying they teach first grade. Teachers teach kids. He contends that the relationship between student and teacher is more important than the relationship between teacher and subject.