• NASSP – Shifting Ground

  • Shifting Ground by Chris Lehmann

  • Stand outside any U.S. high school at dismissal time and face the doors. As you watch the students file out, you will see them pull out all sorts of devices—most of them banned in school— and get on with the way they live their lives, often viewing school as nothing more than a necessary evil in an otherwise modern life. For most students, the tools and talents they employ outside of school have little place in their academic classes.

  • Moreover—and perhaps most damning—by blocking and banning many of the tools and Web sites that form the cornerstone of teenagers’ experiences, educators deny themselves access to the conversations that students are having about how to use these tools intelligently, ethically, and well. And given the overwhelming flow of information that students can access using such tools, it is essential that educators become part of those conversations.

  • Postman (1992) wrote that certain technologies are transformative, not additive, and used the Guttenberg printing press as his example: when the printing press was invented, the outcome wasn’t Europe plus some books, but a whole new Europe. Despite investing billions of dollars in hardware, wiring, and professional development, too many schools are the same as ever, only with some computers, when they should be whole new schools where kids are accomplishing things that no one ever dreamed possible.

  • Christensen (2008) makes the claim that by 2019, half of all high school classes will be taught either fully online or in a “blended” fashion, with between 30% and 80% of the interaction happening online

  • there is no technological reason why classes can’t be taught online or become blended, but what will those classes look like? How will they be taught? Who will teach them? Everyone—parents, teachers, administrators, and students—must be willing to rethink many of their basic assumptions about what classes—and schools—can be.

  • schools should strive for is student empowerment.

  • interactive whiteboards only enable a teacher-centric style of teaching to be more engaging than it would have been with a traditional chalkboard.

  • True empowerment comes when students take the skills they have learned in classrooms and apply them to ends of their own creation.

  • The tools to achieve John Dewey’s dream of what schools can be are in place, but schools must embrace the opportunity to harness the 21st century tools and marry them to a more progressive pedagogy to put the responsibility—and the joy—of learning and creation into the students’ hands.

  • we as a society need to understand what schools can be if they become transparent through the use of 21st century tools. When the classroom, the teacher at the front of the room, and the school library are not the be-all and end-all of gaining information, schools can become truly inquiry driven.

  • The single greatest challenge schools face is helping students make sense of the world today.

  • Schools must create ways for students to come together as a community to ask powerful questions and dare them to bring all of their talents to bear on real-world problems. With technology tools at their disposal, students can research, collaborate, create, present, and network in meaningful ways. Those activities blend and blur and cross boundaries, but they all stem from an inquiry-driven process that allows students to build knowledge with the help of a skillful teacher.

  • After students have created questions, they must conduct research to find answers.

  • the tools that are available now can allow students to collaborate in new and powerful ways. Collaboration does not have to be limited to time spent in class or be bound by geography. Students can use instant messaging; text messaging; course management software; and collaborative writing tools, such as Google Docs, to work together at all hours of the day. The idea of community has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, and that idea should be reflected in classrooms.

  • Once students have worked together, the question must become, What can they create? Students have access to powerful, easy-to-use production tools to create authentic content that can be shared. Students can make films and podcasts, presentations and poetry, and they can publish them and share them with the world.

  • Whether they are making documentary films, writing blog entries, or collaborating on a wiki project, students can create original work and share it with virtually everyone.

  • Social networking has changed the landscape of society. High school reunions are being planned on Facebook, so this is no longer simply a “kid” thing. But it is not enough for educators to simply be aware of social networking; they have an obligation to teach students the difference between social networking and academic networking. Students can be known for more than just photos they took on their latest vacations; they can be known as serious evolving scholars. Educators can help them understand how to paint a digital portrait of themselves online that includes the work they do in school and help them network, both locally and globally, to enrich themselves as students.

  • Schools can and must be transformative—when they encourage kids to harness the new tools at their disposal to create real work of meaning, students can be authentic voices in the world. In the end, it is time to stop thinking of school as preparation for real life and instead show students that the time they spend in school can be a vital and enriching part of their very real and very important lives.

  • References

    • Christensen, C. (2008). Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw-Hill.
    • Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Knopf.

  • Chris Lehmann (chris@practicaltheory.org) is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA.

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