I was so excited last week to watch Geoffrey Canada speak at Capella University. I viewed the speech via live stream and let me tell you, it was very worth the watch even with my 2 kiddos crawling all over me. Mr. Canada did not disappoint and even well exceeded my expectations. My excitement has continued on into this week and has energized me to no end!
When I started this venture of putting my thoughts on education out into the blogosphere, I erroneously lumped Mr. Canada in with a group of folks that I believe are doing much for education, but just not much to change it. I had heard of Canada, but hadn't done my research. I will admit that I was very wrong about him, but I do actually love being wrong as it means I have learned something......and I love learning!
So, why should we blame Canada as the title suggests? Let's blame him for making the education debate uncomfortable. Let's blame him for disrupting the status quo. Let's blame him for making our elected officials squirm in their seats. Let's blame him for making the teaching profession, including administrators and other school leaders, worry that they might have to work harder, or at least think differently about the work they do. And mostly, let's blame Canada for forcing us to think about the children we are educating rather than our silly adult agendas.
The differences between how I think about the changes our country needs to make in our public education system and Canada's philosophy on the matter are very few. One big difference however, is Canada's goal is to meet whatever the demands are head-on and not stop until the children of Harlem are succeeding. He is for a longer school day and drilling language and math so kids will be insanely successful (not just mediocre) on state tests. He is for hiring teachers who are willing to work day and night for their students and on Saturdays and in the summer. I am not against any of this, I just believe that not only do we need to work harder to meet the demands the government places on our children, we need to change how we are making those demands.
In other words, as you well know if you have read my previous posts, I say, stop the drilling, and start investing our time in discovering how to make learning so exciting for as many kids as possible that kids will love to go to school, teachers will love teaching regardless of demands, principals can lead instead of worrying about test scores, parents can be involved, and the community will view public schools as tremendous places of learning and viable options for all children to attend. I believe this difference in Mr. Canada's beliefs about education and mine is most likely cultural and has everything to do with how we were raised and in what era. However, I do believe in Geoffrey Canada and what he is doing and since he has a big voice and I do not, then I hope with everything in me that more people will start standing behind him and listening to his plan for how to make great change. Our children and our country deserve it!
Canada suggests that we can't say that where a child is raised or what is going on around that child can be an excuse for children not being successful. Gangs, poor parenting and lack of parental involvement, socioeconomic status, no food on the table, whatever the excuse teachers need to teach-and teach well-and whatever services that children need need to be given to them so they can learn. I am with this 100%, however, what if we just made a slight adjustment to this philosophy and added in reasons on top of inspiring teachers and providing proper healthcare, and threw in a curriculum focused on useful, lifelong learning mechanisms based in reality? If we are going to compete globally, we have to change how we are teaching our children and that is the bottom line. If we do not step up to this tremendous challenge, I am afraid our country will be in dire straits (even more so than it is!). It's never comfortable to change, especially when something has been the same for so long. But, if we are going to dig ourselves out of this education deficit we have created in the United States, we really should look to Canada!
***I hope that each of you reading today who are not familiar with Geoffrey Canada, will Google him and read about what amazing things he is doing to shake up public education. Also please take a look at the Harlem Children's Zone and pick up the book Whatever it Takes by Paul Tough.
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