Tools

"What is your personal philosophy of education?" is often the first  question posed to me in interviews. Here is my current answer:


I believe that all children can learn if given the right tools. That means: all children can learn if the way we administer those tools changes. The current tools aren’t working!


I just spoke with a young guy who is opening a KIPP Academy charter school in Memphis. What an amazing person! You could just hear is passion for education and his anger with what the current state of public education (especially in Memphis) is doing for our kids. I constantly go back and forth with my feelings about charter schools, but this guy made me a believer (at least for today!)! He essentially said that without competition, no one will work hard to find solutions to problems that arise. How true. He compared the schools to the U.S.P.S. before FedEx came along and completely blew the way shipping was done out of the water. Before FedEx came around, the U.S.P.S. had no reason to ship any faster, who would know the difference right? WRONG! FedEx shows up, everyone is a naysayer and laughs in their faces, and we all know what happened next.


This analogy helped me to further think about how I view the current traditional public school system. There are a ton of people who are too scared to change the system and figure no one will really know the difference anyway (because there isn't much of a "different" way of doing things to really compare to anyway) so why not just keep doing the same thing. I want to be the person that everyone laughs at, the FedEx of education if you will. Quite honestly, I have already been laughed at a few times and perhaps even some of you readers out there have even laughed at me. I am ok with that because I believe change is the answer and I believe I have a pretty good idea of how to make that change!


I invite you to look at Sweden and Finland and what they have done to change the face of education in their respective countries. In addition, if you haven't checked out Sir Ken Robbinson his TED conference or the RSA Animate, please don't wait another second. Here, I will make it easy for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U


Sir Ken and these other countries are calling for and responding to the need for creativity in teaching and learning and they aren't talking about more Smart Boards and LCD projectors either! They are talking about personalized learning, innovative architecture that promotes individualized and collaborative learning opportunities. The big point of changing how we do education is that we cannot just sit kids in desks and force uninteresting information down their throats and hope that they will figure out how to solve the country's problems when they turn 22. We have to prepare our youngsters to think strategically, problem solve, work in community and be independent thinkers as well. We have to motivate this type of learning by revolutionizing our tools and throwing out the old rusty ones!