Beginning Conversations

I was watching a movie last night with my family- Inception. The storyline is very complex but it goes something like this... invading the dreams of others to learn more about what they know and why they do what they do in order to change or explain what has been and influence the actions of the dreamer (at the subconsciousness level) to change a future outcome.  One scene has the character seeking out the sage advice from another character, attempting to dig deeper into the subconscious dreamworld of another. The advice was simple, one cannot assume that merely entering and influencing sufficiently changes the course of action. One must delve into the idea at a point of inception- the place in which the idea is reduced to its simplest form. If you enter anywhere higher up the perspective-evolutionary ladder, you risk obfuscating the idea and calling it something that it isn't holding the belief that this "is", which means that the change you incite does not change the o...

"It’s painful, expensive...stressful and ultimately pointless to work overtime to preserve your dying business model." -Seth Godin As I make my way through my day, I often wonder how much energy I exert on keeping things as they are rather than wondering about the way things should be. In our profession, so much of what we do is a reflection of where we've been- if we've already been there, do we really want to go there again? Is it working?  Do I ask myself this question enough? If I do, what resources am I using to answer this question and are the resources I choose the right vessel to tap? “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” Albert Einstein  I just recently shared a blog posting from Dangerously Irrelevant outlining the learnings of another school invested in a 1:1 laptop program. Their conclusions (for now...) in headings: Lessons learned It's the pedagogy not the technology. Support t...

So what is 21st Century Learning and what responsibilities do we share as educators if we are truly preparing our students for their future? Fortunately, the answer is not dichotomous. One is not for or against 21st Century Learning. It's not about taking sides and deciding what one 'believes'; it's about figuring out what we can do now to best support our students in their present that will lead to a brighter future. I want untangle what it means to teach in and for the 21st Century. I hope what I learn is far more than everything-technology but includes efforts to build fundamental skills and enhance the character of our children. A friend once asked Madeline Albright what it was that we should teach our children so that they would be contributors to a better, global society. She responded quickly and said, Three things: First, we need to teach our youth how to listen; second, we need to teach them how to gather information, and; third, we need t...

Educators have a nasty habit of equating experience with understanding, especially when it comes to 21st Century Learning. The assumption being that if this "has been my experience" then this is the "way that it is". Probably not the greatest learning stance to have as an educator, yet we come by it honestly: our brains seek confirmation. In fact, we literally have to defy natural tendencies when we redirect original intention. Socrates called this state of mind the “illusion of knowing” and the process directing this change-in-mind is now referred to as metacognition. More recently, research refers to this absence of need when need is present as a “feeling of knowing” or “judgment of learning”. So, how can we shake this natural tendency to operate from a platform of positive presuppositions regarding assumptions? By recognizing that our profession is not about finding out but about learning more. Finding out is easy- a million answers could explain why somethi...

Ah hah- My first blogging experience that won't always include mention of family or seemingly inconsequential events that are relevant only to me. Well, that last bit might happen quite often. I actually hope it does. It recently came to my attention that blogging need not be with an audience-of-others in mind. This, I hope, will liberate me from my conditioned approach towards writing, which requires each word, each sentence, each idea to be well thought out, reviewed, edited, and transformed before sharing it with an"other". To achieve this, however, I believe it's in my best interest to set up a few personal blogging rules. These rules are intended to encourage the disentanglement of years of self-imposed perfection. What shall they be? I think the first rule must be that I will not edit for audience-in-mind reasons. The second shall be that I am writing for me and me only. The third shall be that the focus of my blogs will be centered on what I find relevant and i...