Why School?

This page is dedicated to my thoughts, quotes, questions, and reflections upon reading Will Richardson's book "Why School?  How Education Must Change When Learning and Information are Everywhere."  I highly recommend the book and would encourage anyone interested in education and learning to read it.  If you are looking for a book to challenge and push your thinking, this is it! Still wanting more?  Check out Richardson's new book "From Master Teacher to Master Learner" and connect with Will Richardson on Twitter.

Key Quotes
Page 11 - "But what happens inside of schools is going to change, not that the Web connects us the way it does.  It has to."

Page 13 - "More than two billion people are connected online, reaching five billion by 2020.  There are more than 600 000 iPhone apps.  A trillion webpages.  Eight years' worth of YouTube videos uploaded every day.  Four million Wikipedia articles, in English alone."

Page 16 - "...change is everywhere, and ... people are finding out quickly that 'it's not optional.'  So why would we think the institution of school would be immune?  It's not."

Page 34 - "The first [option] is about doing what we currently do 'better.'  The second suggests we do things 'differently' - that the new opportunities for learning require us to articulate a fundamental revision of the value of school and the roles of teachers and classrooms."

Page 42 - "It's a kind of schooling that prepares students for the world they will live in, not the one in which most of us grew up."

Page 43 - "The emphasis shifts from content mastery to learning mastery."

Page 52 - "Stop asking questions on tests that can be answered by a Google search."

Page 58 - "The illiterate will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

Page 74-75 - "There's no competitive advantage today in knowing more than the person next to you.  The world doesn't care what you know.  What the world cares about is what you can do with what you know."

Richardson's Six Unlearning/Relearning Ideas for Educators

1. Share everything (or at least something)
2. Discover, don't defliver, the curriculum
3. Talk to strangers
4. Be a master learner
5. Do real work for real audiences
6. Transfer the power

My Thoughts/Reflections

• There is a growing importance for employees to be able to manage "the growing complexity of the world"
• How are we preparing students for a workforce when we don't know what it will look like yet?  We need to focus on 21st century literacies:
• developing proficiency with technology
• building relationships to that we can work and share with others
• being able to multitask in the online world
• remaining ethical as our world shifts
• Students are capable learners in the online world.  Providing them with a period to learn and "play" with technology before launching an assignment gives them both the opportunity and responsibility to take charge of their learning.
• The majority of students already come to school with a strong foundation, and often footprint, in the online world.  We need to capitalize on this as educators in order to drive their learning.
• We don't know what the world will look like in 5, 10, 20, 50 years etc, and yet we are educating students to live in it.  Consequently, we need to teach skills such as:
• Asking questions
• Collaboration
• Adding to instead of just taking from the technological world
• Global citizenship
• Cyber Responsibility
• The ability to manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple sources of information has been in the curriculum for years, and yet, many teachers do not know how to effectively teach this skill or simply leave it out.  Therefore, I think there needs to be more of an effort made into providing valuable PD for teachers if principals and parents want children to be successful in the world
• There is not enough PD available to assist teachers in planning/teaching/assessing with technology!
• Teachers need to model their own learning process to their students.  So often, we tell students that it is okay to make mistakes and that they need to be lifelong learners, yet we do not show our students our own learning process.  They need to see what self-reflection and ongoing learning looks like and see that we truly value learning

Questions
-If school no longer occurs only from September to June in the classroom due to the online world, how are parents/coaches/priests/siblings being prepared to help students learn?  Or do we have a natural ability to learn and teach?

-Why does technology not have it's own curriculum document? - It's morphed into "media literacy" and "science and technology" ... if technology is the way of the future, then why does it not hold significant weight in schools?

-Many teachers go into teaching because they enjoyed their past school experience as students.  However, the classroom is not the same (or shouldn't be!) as it was when they were students.  How can we better communicate what the role of a teacher is (and is still becoming) so that teachers don't end up being surprised by their career choice when they realize it is not as they imagined and enjoyed as kids?

-Richardson states that students need to take responsibility for their own learning and use their knowledge to create and discover what they believe is important.  How do we as teachers realistically support this?  Essentially, you could have a classroom with 20-35 IEPs?  What if the student's interests are not in the curriculum for the grade they are in?

-The Standards of Practice with the Ontario College of Teachers demands for ongoing professional learning.  However, there is no specific requirement about what this needs to look like.  How can we ensure that teachers are staying up to date with important PD that is relevant to them?  Should all teachers be required to take Tech Part 1?