534 Week 4 Blog

For this blog I want to comment on the video that Louis sent me on on Twitter on rethinking education. The video featured a gentleman from New England discussing his views on education in America. Besides some of the "cheesy" lobster scenes I took some thought provoking knowledge away from the the video. The video starts out in a harbor town in New England and discusses how back in the day people took ownership in their education. In other words their education had meaning and people could see the results and reasons for the education. Everything they did was tangible. He goes on to say that much of our education today is so obscure that many students have difficulty finding relevance in what they are doing and thus become disconnected. This is especially true for me as I teach EBD students. The next thing I wish to comment on from the video was how teachers need to be willing to give up some of the control in their classroom. Our current model for education is based on an outdated industrial model that is centuries old. What a revolutionary and powerful idea to give our students choices to study things that are relevant and meaningful to them all the while preparing them for a future. It seems to me that we are generating students that can do what we tell them and spit back information and score very well on standardized exams. However, for many of our graduates when it comes to making decisions they lack the skills as they are told what they need to do and what is supposed to be important their entire educational carer. The idea of giving up some control as a teacher is a powerful thought and one that I had not pondered till watching the "Tweeted" video.