Teaching into the unknown

One hundred years ago, Dewey was telling us to focus on the learning. For one hundred years, administrators and educators have known the best way for students to learn but have failed to make the necessary changes. These changes seem scary because it is different from how most teachers were taught and currently teach, and it seems difficult because of the demanding expectations for students to score well on standardized tests. There will probably be a lot of mistakes and failures while teachers put together a new learning curriculum, but if teachers are truly trying to model a growth mindset, we need to take these risks and fail forward. Grant Lichtman (TEDx Talks, 2013) stressed the importance of just starting. We know what the research says, and we need to stop talking about it and start doing it.

While change can be scary and difficult, I took a lot of hope from Lichtman’s TEDx talk when he said that collectively the schools have the answers to all of the major issues (TEDx Talks, 2013). If public education officials, administrators and teachers worked collaboratively with each other instead of competitively, we could solve our problems and move closer to realizing Dewey’s vision.