Wednesday, November 25, 2009

21 century teaching

After reading through the 21 century teaching website, I had mixed emotions about it.

Connecticut is not a member of the initiative.  I think it is great that businesses are willing to work with schools and districts to help prepare our students for the 21 century.  Where I disagree is states and businesses telling me how to teach and the best way to teach my students.  As an educator in Connecticut I am not aware of what skills I am required to teach my students intechnology.  We are so focused on RTI and core subject skills for our state testing, we have little time to make education fun anymore.  Our instructions are so rigid and our day is layed out for us.  I have each lesson pre-written for my science units so that anyone could teach it.  I feel like I could better reach my students if I was able to create my own ways to teach skills.  Guidelines are important but actual lessons we are mandated to teach is rediculous!  I went to school to learn how to teach and I feel like I am not doing that.  I am reading from a lesson plan.  Districts are so concerned with test scores they forget we are in the profession of teaching children.

As for businesses telling me what I should be doing in my classroom, I have a probelm with that.  They are not in the classroom to know what is best.  They want to promote their product.  It reminds me of special interest groups in government.  They want only what would benefit them and their company.  Again, this is only my opinion.  I do not believe all companies are like this but a vast majority are.  Everyone is out to make a buck.  If these companies involved were companies simply supporting schools it would be different, but they are companies who have other motives in mind.

7 comments:

  1. I think you are very wise to be wary of any connection between business "interests" and education - vending machines with Coke in schools and TV's with advertising in the classroom for example. From what I've been able to garner so far though is this intiative is all about backward planning; establishing what skills will be necessary for our future graduates to thrive in the 21C. If educators, business, and policy-makers can create some informed opposition to ridiculous politics that bring about such offerings as NCLB, all the better. I'm not sure how transparent P21 is, but if it is, I think you could probably learn to trust it. At the same time though I do think you need stronger public watchdogs in education in the US.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I disagree with you. Our job as educators is to prepare students to be thinking, productive members of society. If they are to be productive, they need skills that are in demand in the workplace. The Framework isn't a directive dictating specific curriculum, but a guideline to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork skills in our students. Look though the list of partners and you see a very diverse list of companies that represent a variety of industries. And the Partnership is working to move assessment away from the standardized testing model to more hands-on authentic assessments.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You made an interesting point in regards to business and education. My state does not participate with this 21st century partnership however, in my searching I did find where 21st century skills are addressed at the state level. I may be naive however, I thought that partnership with a business would be a good way to ensure that the students exiting school would leave with skills necessary to be strong participants in the business world. Your post however does make some thought provoking points that I did not immediately come to my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michele,
    I also appreciate businesses helping to assist teachers in preparing students to be ready for the work community but I do not like them telling me how it must be done. Not all of my students will go on to college and high profile business occupations. Communication skills and collaboration are vital for all jobs and I promote these in my classroom. I am against more mandates b eingput into schools with out the proper funding.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You make an interesting point about internal and external forces shaping education, however, if we are to prepare the students for the 21st century, which includes the labor force then we must talk and listen to successfull businesses. Economics is linked directly to government spending and saving. I don't like anyone telling me how to educate,however we can collaborate intelligently to increase the academic achievements of our citizens and transform them into criticle thinkers, and objective listeners.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I understand your reluctance. I am sure there are some businees which would enforce what they want done since it is their money that supports the program but I am sure not all of them do it. I am wondering why more states aren't involved if it is such a terrific program. I would also want to know how much input the companies would have in the curriculum. I would make sure I had all the facts before I would become a part of this or any other business/organization.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I understand your frustration with not having the liberty to teach how you want to teach. My school seems to be slowly going towards the point of everyone following the same lesson plans. It truly does take creativity out of lesson planning and doing what we feel is best for our students. Before our class assignment, I was not familiar with the "Partnership for 21st Century Skills" program, but I would hope that we could take the good from this program and help prepare our students thrive in this century. I truly hope this is not another hidden agenda to get everyone to teach a certain way, but more of a support in helping educators and school systems become further aware of how we can help our students in the area of technology, critical thinking, collaboration and problem solving skills. I guess I sound pretty optimistic, but I am just ready for a more effective change in our school systems.

    ReplyDelete