RE Innovation. As long as the words "school," "classes," "teachers" "courses" "grades" are used to talk about education there will be little true innovation. It doesn't help the IES and NSF have a definition of innovation that says basically they'll fund stuff they call innovation as long as it's been done before.
Yes, there are a variety of ways of looking at innovation, but I think you really mean: "not ever done before". And, yes, policymakers are part of the problem because they got where they are being successful in the current structure of education, so of course, they don't see why it should change. Then ,there's been little discussion about true radial reform/restructuring of education.
You're right, that it needs to be more than waivers, but first there needs to be some discussion and really revolutionary thinking. Waivers might allow some starting points, but there are so many moving parts. Once you have a totally new structure, how does it work? what allows learning to happen? what is the role of the adults? How are those adults prepared to work with children in the new environment? (notice the use of language and what I didn't say. I believe using current educational terms creates mental images that make it harder to create innovative learning settings.
Loving all these points. Replacing the grammar of "schooling" -- there I go again, bad word -- seems critical to me. And I argue that starts with a plain English conversation in communities around the hopes for the children themselves. Then we can figure out how and what do we do to fulfill that. But don't start with structures. Start with the why.
Find me the $$ to put together a group of about 30 folks -- some being learning specialists (aka How People Learn) and parents etc, and we meet for about 3 days -- and create a model for a new system for helping youth learn. Then there's some time to put the results of that symposium together, and Publish it. If there's more $$ pull together another group to create a model for preparing adults to work in that new learning environment. Publish it.
If someone is willing to provide all the wavers, and there's a community willing to become the model (need $$$) create it.
But the real impact will be the two products. You know if you put out one model, some other folks will want to replicate the process and have their own product -- so they can put their label on it. Now all that creates discussion, not about the past, but about the future. It changes from tinkering to a serious re-creation of a new design for helping youth learn.
RE Innovation. As long as the words "school," "classes," "teachers" "courses" "grades" are used to talk about education there will be little true innovation. It doesn't help the IES and NSF have a definition of innovation that says basically they'll fund stuff they call innovation as long as it's been done before.
Yes, there are a variety of ways of looking at innovation, but I think you really mean: "not ever done before". And, yes, policymakers are part of the problem because they got where they are being successful in the current structure of education, so of course, they don't see why it should change. Then ,there's been little discussion about true radial reform/restructuring of education.
You're right, that it needs to be more than waivers, but first there needs to be some discussion and really revolutionary thinking. Waivers might allow some starting points, but there are so many moving parts. Once you have a totally new structure, how does it work? what allows learning to happen? what is the role of the adults? How are those adults prepared to work with children in the new environment? (notice the use of language and what I didn't say. I believe using current educational terms creates mental images that make it harder to create innovative learning settings.
Loving all these points. Replacing the grammar of "schooling" -- there I go again, bad word -- seems critical to me. And I argue that starts with a plain English conversation in communities around the hopes for the children themselves. Then we can figure out how and what do we do to fulfill that. But don't start with structures. Start with the why.
Find me the $$ to put together a group of about 30 folks -- some being learning specialists (aka How People Learn) and parents etc, and we meet for about 3 days -- and create a model for a new system for helping youth learn. Then there's some time to put the results of that symposium together, and Publish it. If there's more $$ pull together another group to create a model for preparing adults to work in that new learning environment. Publish it.
If someone is willing to provide all the wavers, and there's a community willing to become the model (need $$$) create it.
But the real impact will be the two products. You know if you put out one model, some other folks will want to replicate the process and have their own product -- so they can put their label on it. Now all that creates discussion, not about the past, but about the future. It changes from tinkering to a serious re-creation of a new design for helping youth learn.
Some great work being done in the microschool space around this already! Visited a few yesterday that were just awesome.
Very neat. Love that you're thinking about and cataloguing this