Re-Envisioning Education

[Rod Rock]

Colleagues:

Yesterday in Bloomfield Hills at Way Elementary, we were fortunate to think together. The energy of the engagement carried me home, through the night, and into this evening.

I'd like to ask you as my colleagues to view the attached video and let me know what you see, think, and wonder about re-imagining education.

Thanks for allowing me to daily live my passion of thinking and learning. I've been blessed.

If the file doesn't open, please follow this link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105492482\

Rod

[Mindy Nathan]

I got this as an audio file :), so what I heard was that due to budget cuts in the LA school district, the urban area schools were hit particularly hard, losing many new staff members who chose to be in these schools, to replacement due to involuntary lay-offs and seniority "bumping."
What I think is that this will dramatically change the culture of the school, which sounded phenomenal. There is some very creative teaching going on - I love the idea of the horror video about Pythagoras :). I might still have some understanding of mathematics if I'd been taught this in a fun and creative way.
What I wonder about is why we hold so fast to systems that really don't work. I understand the need for unions and I am grateful for some very good things they have done; I am not convinced, however, that they are nearly as student-centered or solutions-based in their thinking as they could be.
I also wonder about budget cuts, and I've been on the school board side of this. I always wonder if the administrative cuts mirror the cuts in the trenches that touch the students, as the young teacher asked.
I wonder how any of this can be construed as ensuring that students in urban LA will enjoy continued positive learning experiences - and how vibrant, energetic young staff members will ever commit to a profession that can do this to them.
Interesting post. Thanks.

[Rod Rock]

Mindy:

It is great to think with you again. Thank you.

You're right, this is a sound file.

I'm very interested in your perspective here. It's interesting to think about school culture. Who carries the culture? Is it the principal, the teachers, the students, the community? Maybe it is a combination. Then again, when the culture, or at least the intent of a culture, exists before teachers are hired or students arrive, is fulfilled by a group of teachers, leaders, and students, and then many teachers leave, can the culture endure? Teachers can induct students into a culture. Teachers and leaders can create a culture with students. But can a culture endure without the teachers? Can student and community member induct teachers into a culture? It is very interesting.

It makes me think about points of leverage. Where should we as re-imaginers (or is it imagineers) spend our time and energy--with superintendents, with principals, with teachers, with students and teachers?

And as you said, if we spend our time with teachers, and the system lets them go, how can we ever hope to change the system in any fundamental way.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing you thinking.

Rod

[Mindy Nathan]

Hey Rod . I think your wonderings are essential. My sense about school culture is that in terms of "re-imagining," we still have to be very based in the here and now. We really can't "know" the future, but already we know that the present is fairly well ahead of what is going on in most buildings, at least technologically.
Given that school cultures are uniquely human, they are also uniquely fragile, and to my way of thinking very dependent on the organic mix of people who are present at the time. I say this because after many years of a certain school district culture, I was witness to it unraveling very quickly under new management. And I say "management" deliberately.
I wonder a lot about schools being so fixed in place. I wonder if cultures could persist beyond place but I'm not sure how - culture is so reliant on those people who are participating in its creation at a point in time.
There is much to be said, however, for vision and leadership - and relationships. These elements are not to be taken lightly. I believe that a strong building and/or district and/or intermediate school district leader can have tremendous impact on fashioning school culture, but this assumes a more traditional organization of schools as places....
More to be said, of course.

Mindy