I strongly agree with Christiansen's belief that we must be prepared to embrace disruptive innovation with a new readiness to improve educational research because our current system is failing and in business terms we may be close to government liquidation if we don't start to show immediate results. Christiansen's use of examples from the business world is most appropriate for proving this point beginning with Digital Equipment Corporation, the leading minicomputer company of the 1970s and 1980s. This company in its own arrogance-ignorance completely disregarded the emergence of Apple's personal computers and did not observe the possibility for competition that would ultimately put DEC and minicomputers out of business. Changes or "disruptions" in microprocessor technology allowed smaller personal computers to be more efficient and cost reductive than the established technology of the times. While our system of education claims to be differentiating instruction and incorporating multiple instructional strategies that appeal to various learning styles, the truth is we are still teaching in a monolithic fashion rather than embracing student-centric technology. Proof lies within Christiansen's argument regarding the ill-affects of No Child Left Behind and standardized assessments. Despite countless evidence from scholarly research that endorses an individualized technology based system for learning, policy-makers in both education and government continue to adhere to the "one size fits all" method for assessing what students learn. The only difference is unlike in the classroom where students simply move on even when they do not demonstrate satisfactory comprehension of the material, negative results of standardized tests administered at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels stay with students for the rest of their academic careers.
The implications for me as a future school principal are best illustrated with Christiansen's introduction to Chapter 7 where Stephanie Allston replies, "What a tough gig," to her superintendent regarding the school she was about to inherit. The first issue lies with contradictions in established educational research. Administrators often come in contact with a hot new topic at district mandated workshops for professional development and ultimately embrace these concepts without actually understanding how they can best be applied to their school community. As with Christiansen's example, "one study praised breaking large schools into smaller schools, and then another indicated that small schools created had been a mixed bag- some were great, while others were disappointing." Unfotrunately our system of education continues to reinevent the wheel by embracing a particular trend for a brief period only to swing the pendulum in the complete opposite direction in the name of educational reforms. One need only look at the current issue with special education for a shining example of how policy-makers continue to engage in meaningless reversals of educational trends without properly understanding the consequences of these actions. Resource rooms were a common trend in classrooms just twenty years ago. Today we are mainstreaming special-needs students not to best meet their educational needs but for obvious cost-reduction purposes. While pros and cons exist for both models of special education, think of how much time and money has been wasted in reversing these trends! Today's administrators must be prepared to make committed decisions that will positively shape the short and long term interests of their school community. This is only the beginning. Once we observe successful pilot schools integrating student-centric technology, they can provide the data for continued educational research which can then motivate lawmakers to enact policies that will ultimately counteract our monolithic and outdated standardized systems of assessment and learning.
Actions that should be taken with students, teachers, and parents in relation to this topic are to bring them all onboard and allow them to actively participate in the decision-making process that will affect their school community. All too often administrators seem to adopt a "God-complex" and embark upon a dictatorial crusade of establishing their power and authority while forgetting who it is they really work for. Teachers constantly get lost in their content due to the pressure of meeting state and federal standards while forgetting exactly why they got into this business in the first place. Parents are asking today's schools to do more for their children including playing the role of surrogate parent for eight hours of the day, and blaming the system at every opportunity rather than forcing their children to accept responsibility for their shortcomings. This of course leaves students ,who are usually forgotten in the equation which is perplexing because this is who administrators, teachers, and parents are really working for! Shockingly enough it is not just today's students who were forgotten, but studies show more than half of our society did not have an enjoyable or positive educational experience. Administrators must develop more student-centered leadership opportunities for school improvement because they are the ones who know best how to improve the quality of their educational experience. I first got into teaching because my educational experience was mostly negative and hoped to improve upon this for future generations. As an educator I frequently employ student-centered activities and allow students the ability to choose from a variety of activities, participate in alternate assessments, and have an active role in interpreting the curriculum. This has greatly enhanced the learning process for them and has helped me move closer to my goal of achieving the status of "master teacher." I hope to one day offer the same decision-making ability to parents, teachers, and students so they become an active and valued part of our school community.
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ReplyDeleteLiked your comments in general but honed in on the point about trends in special education. I’m a career long special ed guy, so have seen the trends come and go.
ReplyDeleteThe impetus for greater inclusion, stemming from the fortification of the LRE provisions of IDEIA, is something special education lobbyists have fought for long and hard (and often adversarially) over 30 years. Schools, on the other hand, often look to interpret these provisions to save money. In my experience, both sides sometimes end up losing sight of the best interests of kids; the lobby to the advance the philosophical point, the schools as a way of keeping the tremendous cost of special education in check.