Week+5

This week's article, by Judy Salpeter, was relevant to many of my classroom concerns because it focused on the clash between teaching values and methods of the past versus the needs of learners today. So many teachers are still practicing their craft with the stand-and-deliver method of teaching, not because they have no concern for the well-being of their students, but because of the difficulty of clearing a new path for 21st Century skills. I particularly enjoyed Salpeter's raisng the issue of the need to re-address our standards. We all know that standards are open to interpretation, but to better communicate the needs of our learners I believe we need to rewrite our standards to focus more on concepts such as creativity, problem-solving, analysis, and communication: "According to Chris Dede, 'In their focus on achievement lots of people are going back to behaviorist ideas from the first half of the 20th century, which said that basics must come first, and only when you know all the basic concepts and skills can you move on to learn about more complex interrelationships. Unfortunately, many kids get bored or burned out long before they get there. The drill kills their natural curiosity and they stop even trying.'" (Salpeter). The issue of teachers feeling pressure to go "back to the basics" is indicative of a disconnect of communication between teachers, administrators, and those in politics who have the power (and, typically, an unfortunate lack of teaching experience) to change the direction of education. 21st Century skills are not being addressed in our classrooms as they ought to be (mine included) and my basic belief is that it will take a large percentage of educators to shift our sails before we can hope to help those students we have in our classrooms today.

Here is a link to Salpeter's article: []