Running Synopsis- a revised WHY
Teaching is truly a calling that has an inspire or destroy label glued on it and, after my short yet highly educational first years, I can honestly say that the tendency of educational training and student assessment reinforces this unfortunate taboo. This blog seeks to discuss big ideas and solve small detailed problems.
You won’t find the usual educational jargon in this blog. Rather, I write with the assumption here that the current status quo in centralized education is fundamentally flawed and that a reliance on the code words and data used to support it should be abandoned in order to achieve a higher educational clarity and purpose. The sources used in this blog are diverse and, most crucially, cutting edge. Instead of playing the educational catch up game most schools play, this blog looks to engage students and educational evolution at the highest level of innovation. Suprisingly (and I write the interjection with well intentioned sarcasm and aversion to snark), the brightest and most inventive minds in the world are not usually found in educational development and leadership roles. As Sir Ken Robinson stated in his landmark Ted Talk, “[Educators] aren’t often seen at dinner parties.”
Bright minds are found (or, more accuately, are allowed to flourish) most often in more cutting edge fields like communication technology and entertainment. The cutting edge thrives in such places because the room for expansion is limitless. There isn’t a “get realistic” sentiment shelled out to people with dynamite ideas in cutting edge fields – these innovators are the leaders. This blog aspires to allow teachers to, once again, become the leaders of innovation by connecting them with ideas outside the incestuous and, dare I say, negatively centered education intellegentsia.
I believe that every teacher has a desire to expand and learn with his or her students but often gets bogged down with little tasks like working endlessly on a school’s academic and financial plan, taking attendance, sitting through on going meetings upon meetings upon meetings (changing this alone would revolutionize schools across the country- have you ever heard anyone say, “Thank god we had that meeting!” ? I haven’t ), writing purchase orders, conducting fundraisers and so on. Technology is enabling us to liberate ourselves from the problems of efficiency and focus on effectiveness, creativity, and innovation inside and outside the classroom. This blog celebrates the marriage of technological advancement and student-centered instruction. It will use as its resource not only passionate innovators but also the feedback of students themselves. Who else would know best? Let’s quit this guessing game and look at the whole cow here instead of just shoveling grain in the feedbag.
A recurring use of the website TED will serve as the initial connector to innovation in this blog.
Teach in the Present 