Education Secretary Duncan’s “dramatic reform agenda” starts with transparency. The plan is to first collect the data, the real numbers that tally which kids are making it and which kids aren’t, and, from those numbers, which teachers and principles are making it and which are not. The next step is to together, in an open system, compare what works and what doesn’t. Teachers are expected to then be inspired and work toward better practices.
As a life and professional coach, I feel sorry for our teachers. I like the new administration’s energy but in many ways it’s more of the same: more money, higher standards, more assessment, more parent involvement, and (my guess) more homework for kindergarteners. But, most of all, it’s even more work for teachers.
Teachers are asked not just to teach a curriculum. They are expected to design curricula around content and performance standards and then evolve their curricula as they go. They are asked to continually learn on the job and at the same time increase their students’ outcomes. They are being asked to not only become great teachers but to reinvent what teaching is.
And now they are going to be publicly graded on their performance.
With only 24 hours in a day, teachers, like all of us, face massive personal demands. They have their own children and aging parents to care for; bodies, homes, and cars to maintain; relationships to nurture; financial decisions to make; and communities to contribute to.
The old systems of support–schools, hospitals, churches, businesses, governments, and more–are undergoing massive change and teachers are in the front line.
Teachers need our help! We all need help!
The solution is not more of the same.
Icanology has the capacity to not only support schools, students, teachers, and parents where they are now, but also help them evolve the system in the act of using it.
Icanology can help the Obama administration expand and then reach a new vision for learning, one that makes sense for all of us and for this century.
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