Better? Or Easier?
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BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly UpdateJune 5, 02024, No. 174 (Read online) Better? Or Easier?Hey, Here’s a frame for thinking about our approach to education in this fraught moment: We’re trying to do the wrong thing righter. Let us first say first that we really believe that the vast majority of people who go into teaching and school leadership care about kids, want them to learn, hope for them to thrive and be joyful in their lives. But what if despite our best intentions, our current practices and pedagogies are really serving us instead of serving our kids? We've asked questions like these for years, but right now, as the time-worn narrative around “education” seems to be buckling, they feel like they need to be asked again. -Do kids learn better and become more prepared for life today when we separate out the content into different subjects, or is it just easier for us? -Do kids learn better and become more prepared for life today when we have every one of them pretty much go through the same curriculum in the same way, or is it just easier for us? -Do kids learn better and become more prepared for life today when we have them turn off all of their technology in school, or is it just easier for us? -Do kids learn better and become more prepared for life today when we assess them all the same way, or is it just easier for us? -Do kids learn better and become more prepared for life today when we decide what they should learn and how they should learn it, or is it just easier for us? -Do kids learn better and become more prepared for life today when we rank and sort them by grades and test scores, or is it just easier for us? Increasingly, there’s a compelling argument to be made that the experience we create for kids in schools is the wrong experience for the learning that kids need to do today. And, that the “improvements” or “transformations” that we aspire to are really just trying harder to do the wrong things righter. And that the righter we are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger we get. I get it. There’s not a lot of bandwidth or energy to really step back and ask “are we doing the right thing?” or “are we trying to do the wrong things right?” This is really hard because it’s hard to admit we may be doing the wrong thing. That would force us to look deeply not just at practice but at the way we think about our own value and expertise. And yet now, as more and more people around the world begin to reflect deeply on what’s most important in their own lives, and life on the planet in general, as hard as it is, it may be the perfect time to go there. Frankly, the future may depend on it. (No pressure.) Onward! Will and Homa What We're ReadingA few links to fuel your inquiry: Coming of Age in the 21st Century by Tomas Pueyo "Adulthood is also learning to interact with others in a mature way, not just as the child of your parents. It’s realizing that others have equal rights and responsibilities. That you need to cooperate in order to succeed. What rites of passage help teenagers internalize that?
Neither the biological nor the intellectual rites of passage into adulthood prepare children for the technological world. If the Church is so adamant about warning against temptation, how does it not help children deal with the technological temptations of doomscrolling, fake news, or cyberbullying? At least it does tackle temptation. How does school, university, or any other rite of passage help kids deal with the biggest challenge of our time?”
Fourth Person: The Knowing of the Field by Otto Scharmer "The number one problem facing humanity today is not climate change or inequality or war. It is not the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI). Rather, it is our sense that we are powerless to change any of it. The old ways of knowing and acting in our world are no longer sufficient. Our systems are collapsing. If we are going to serve societal transformation in the face of this collapse, as we believe is fully possible, we need to draw on a new form of knowing—knowing for transformative action.” The Kids That Edtech Writes Off by Dan Meyer "Another response that is present above and prevalent within edtech is to blame the kids, to say that the students who are not engaged by your product are not engaged because they “don’t want to engage.” This perspective maintains it is not the responsibility of the edtech developer to understand why 95% of students seem to have checked out of their product. Happily, for those developers, this perspective can account for any product shortcoming. If you see students disengaging en masse from an experience that, for example, treats them and their classmates like broken widgets traveling along individualized conveyor belts, well, we can say that they are simply getting out what they are putting in. This perspective also maintains it’s the teacher’s responsibility to remedy the liabilities of the product. The teacher here should function like a line worker, flipping widgets back onto their belt whenever the belt throws them off." Learn With BQIWill We Be in Your Neighborhood?Homa and Will would love to connect at any of the upcoming events they're speaking at: June 20 - RET Retreat, Iowa State University, Ames, IA (Will) June 25-27 - Leadership Seminar for Overseas Principals, Office of Overseas Schools, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC (Homa and Will) July 25-27 - "Building and Becoming" 2.5-Day Retreat, Atlanta International School (Homa and Will) Info and Registration August 21 - Chilliwack (BC) School District Leadership Retreat (Will) August 22 - SD67 Leadership Retreat, Penticon, BC (Will) September 3 - Nanuet (NY) School District Open Day (Will) September 6-8 - United Nations International School (UNIS), Hanoi, Vietnam Governance as Leadership Training Institute: “Charting Tomorrow - Board Governance, Big Questions and the Future of Education”(Homa) October 25-27 - Tri-Association Conference, Mexico City, MX (Homa and Will) October 31- Nov 3 - Cape Town, South Africa: Association of International Schools in Africa annual conference (Homa) WORK WITH US!Let BQI help you unlock the opportunities that are rapidly unfolding in education and the wider contexts. Everyone is talking about the challenges and the difficulties that are breaking systems and people. Leadership navigates change with fearless inquiry, futures thinking, imagination, and diverse relationships. That takes new skills, lenses, and dispositions and we are here for it. We help school communities:
Why not think about having us work with your staff, leadership team, or board on some BIG Questions worth pursuing? We're working to design healthier, more just, more relevant, and more sustainable futures for school communities. Get all the details here. Onward with hope, Homa and Will |
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