What's wrong with education today?

The semester is coming to a close and I am finding it hard to keep students motivated and interested in being in the class. So I was trying to think of a way to get my grade 12's to stay on task during the last few weeks of their final semester of high school. I decided to do something with a topic that I knew was important to them.

What is the purpose of high school?

I decided to raise the question, what is wrong with education today? Most of my students really took this question to hart as they all had serious accusations as to why education (the way it is now) is pointless, in their point of view.
How I sparked this little debate was by showing them a couple of videos I have as a favorites on Youtube. The videos are called "A vision of students today" by Mike Wesch and "Education Today and Tomorrow" by Dean Shareski.



I showed the students the video's and then posed this question; "Does our education system meet the needs of today's students?"

The students had plenty to say in their responses. The responses included such things as:

"Teachers are lazy and don't do a good job at motivating students to learn."

"Most of our classes are pointless, I will never use most of them once I leave high school."

"I don't have the option to study the things that I am interested in."

"I wish we could do things more practical and apply it to the real world."

"We should do things with more technology in all our classes."

"I think we should be able to specialize in the things that we like and not have to take the mandatory classes like math and English...when will I ever need to write and essay later in my life if I don't go to university?"

"School doesn't challenge me and I get bored and don't feel like doing any of the pointless assignments."

As you can see the students had a lot to say and we had to end the discussion early as we ran out of class time. Obviously the students were passionate about this topic and wanted to speak out. I could tell, as can you I'm sure, from their responses they were asking for more from their public education than they are receiving.

I decided to take this one step further for two reasons: 1) to give them an opportunity to speak out and let their feelings and opinions be heard and 2) to give myself an inside look at what it is exactly that students want today and how can I better adapt my teaching and influence change in the system to meet those needs.

I decided to add an assignment at the end of all this.

PROPOSAL TO REVAMP EDUCATION (HIGHSCHOOL)

Refer to the following youtube videos:
a) Education Today & Tomorrow
b) A Vision of Students today
c) 3 Steps for 21st Century Learning
d) School of the future

Requirements:

1) What subjects/content would be taught? (I.e. math, science, religion, politics, horseback riding??)

2) How would they be taught?
I.e. Setting: in a school, outside, multiple locations, others?? Resources: labs, computers, digital equipment?? Instruction: projects, lectures, experiments, research, work experience??

3) How would students be assessed? (How do you find out what the students know) i.e. exams, reports…??

Provide as much detail as possible when you answer these questions. You can present this in any format you chose, essay, PowerPoint, video, play, collage…be creative)

You will be marked on the following:

a) are all the questions answered
b) is there enough detail in your answers
c) are your answers practical

Be sure to reference any resources that you use.

The assignments will be coming in at the end of the semester, which is in about a week. I am eagerly anticipating what the students will come up with. I will have a follow up post to report on what the students hand in.

Should be interesting.

Redefining my role as Teacher

[... first rays of light]
Originally uploaded by Stefan Mendelsohn

As each day goes by I find myself thinking more and more about what my new role as a teacher is in this digital and technical world we call teaching. I have come to an early conclusion that my goal as a teacher is to teach students how to teach themselves. It doesn't matter if I am teaching Math, Physics, Drafting...fill in the blank, in the end students may remember a few things from the content but the bigger picture is; did I teach them something about themselves and about how they learn best?
I find I am focusing more on being a resource and providing valuable resources to my students that help them achieve success in the content and understanding about how to learn. I have discussion weekly in my classrooms with students about "what is the point of school"? Through our discussions I get the sense that students are frustrated with the way schools are set up and how "pointless" some classes are. They make the point, "when will I ever use this again in my life?" My comment is that true, you may never need some or most of what you learn in school, but the important thing is that you learn how to learn so that you can teach yourself anything that you will need to learn in your lifetime. Most of the content I learned in school I had to reteach to myself if I needed it in University or at a job. So to me, the bigger lesson, the bigger picture is; can I teach my students what their learning style is and can I provide resources to help them discover and take advantage of what their learning strengths are?
To me this simplifies my teaching and makes me a more efficient teacher because I know where I should be focusing my energy and time. I am sure this philosophy of teaching, I guess you could call it, will change and evolve as I embark on my teaching journey but I feel I am on to something more foundational and valuable than trying to convince kids to learn this because they have to if they want to graduate or because they may need this if they go to University. If there is a method to the madness then maybe the madness might just make sense and be worth something in the end.