Liberated

Working in a school is truly a magical experience.  Every day we come to a building where hundreds of children come to actively engage. The energy within a school is truly infectious. With over 1200 students and over 80 staff, there is no end to the connectivity that takes place every day. What makes it even more significant and special these days is the incredible journey we are on to define our piece of the 21^st century educational model of education. We are actually living in a revolution. I am sure that years from now they will write about this period of time as being the tipping point of educational change.  If you take time to really look around, you can actually see the paradigm shift evolving in our halls. The collective energy and group think is shifting right in front of our eyes. It is actually quite a liberating feeling watching the many students and staff let go of old ways of thinking.

We know that change is always difficult.  As creatures of habit and comfort, we settle into familiar ways of thinking and being. The irony with this is that the 21^st century model of education actually offers more freedom and liberty to both the learners and teachers.  Once you move past your fears and let go, you will find the new model has fewer restrictions on assessment and evaluation, and at the same time empowers students to be the architects of their own learning. As a student, what is more liberating than knowing you can show you have met learning outcomes through a variety of media. The letting go of the belief that the teacher is the primary keeper of knowledge should be liberating for everyone. With the ability to find answers at your fingertips, the answers themselves don’t really have the same relevance they use to. What matters more today is how you arrive at the answer and what you do with the answers once we get them. And further to this, is the reality that it is not about one person knowing how to arrive at the answer; the real power is actually found in the collective almost global response to seeking answers.

The conundrum for many teachers is rooted in the fear of not knowing how to engage students using these new paradigms. If I let go, will they respond? For many teachers, the locus of classroom management is rooted in control and positional power. What we need now is more research and practical examples on how to support the delivery of wholesale change in education. The researchers have and are proclaiming that change is needed and that we must do it now; we get it and we hear you. Now that we have heard your message, we politely ask that the ivory tower researchers return to their labs and work to develop practical methodologies and structures that can be implemented in our classrooms. Proven strategies and methodologies used to support 21^st century education will help reduce the stress and anxiety and make the change more manageable for everyone.

  

Identify the stakeholders…       Trust the process…      Trust the people…