We are working to compete in an ever connected world. Recently earthquakes rocked Japan, and the price for oil dropped here because of it. Stock markets had huge losses all over the world.The US has moved from a country that was pretty much on it's own to one that is part of a wide and diverse economy. This simple global economic connection is something that I find truly fascinating. Today we are faced with a virtual Mount Everest in education, how do you prepare the kids for an economy that is just as affected by what happens in Japan as in Louisiana? There is not an easy answer for this. In yesterday's post I talked about what happens to us when we start making concessions for our kids and not hold them to the same standards that society holds them to. Today, I want to pose a simple question. If we are so connected via an economy, is it not reasonable to think that our actions in education will have an impact on the world? My best weapon in preparing them is to show the kids that patience and determination are the keys to being a prosperous individual in our society.
My Astronomy class today dealt with black holes and used the Hubble space telescope website. This lab consisted of several steps and questions to answer along the way. It used this website as a learning tool and lab since it is a little difficult to create a black hole in the lab. Some of these questions made them think, which they shy away from. I would go even farther and say that some of them required you to take information on the website and make inferences. Most kid's raised their hands and asked questions, so that I could give them stem questions, and hopefully they would then provide me an acceptable answer. Some kids went to Google, and had trouble sifting through that minefield and others just gave up. This to to me highlights a fundamental problem with our education system. Students need to be able to think and act for themselves, take information that is given to them and make something out of it. The simple quest for knowledge has been one that has moved us forward as a species, and has made America the country that it is today. I am doing all I can to challenge them, as are a lot of my colleagues at the senior level. At some point everyone from kindergarten to first grade must be on board. In my last class for the day I had a kid actually say "I got really frustrated with the website." I asked him why, and he said "because it would ask me a question, and I would look at the website and read everything but not be able to find an answer to it." Others told me that the assignment was too hard. This is not the first lab that they have been given to do, and definitely not the first time that they have been asked to think for themselves.
This exchange did highlight the massive job as educators that the community has. For these kids to be successful members of our society we have to constantly challenge them, and push them to use their minds. We need an education system that emphasizes this from the beginning. This ever changing economy that we live in is creating a world that expects us to make decisions and come up with solutions to problems on the fly. As a country we should be focusing more on asking the question "how can we make this better?" As John F Kennedy said about the mission to the moon "we do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard." Our mission to the moon in education is helping mold a child that can think for themselves. I am dedicated to trying to make this better, dedicated to trying to prepare the kid's for their inevitable role as leaders of tomorrow. Our responsibility to produce productive members of society is not just important to America but important to the world.
Until tomorrow,
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
John Dewey
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