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What is your greatest concern about the future of education? I’ve been asked this by more than a few people over the past year. My answer, it seems, is not provocative enough. My greatest concern is not the funding of higher education, the charter/choice debates, how to achieve access and opportunity, 21st century skills, reimagining the school, testing, the Common Core debates, re-inventing schools, protective core values of the Academy, the role of teachers, the role of technology in education or any specific issue. Some of these are personal passions that drive much of my work and thinking, but there is still something more fundamental. It has to do with how we discuss and consider the future of education. My greatest concern relates to our capacity (or what sometimes seems like a diminished capacity) to have deep, rigorous, candid, persistent, extended but open-minded public discourse about current and future policies, issues and innovations.
1. Recognize that any educational decision will have both affordances and limitations, and invite canid discourse about both.
2. Resist the urge the demonize the “other” side as if the person’s policies and decisions represent a grand conspiracy to take over the world.
3. Take our public discourse into the details and nuances.
4. Recognize that there are multiple paths to a given conclusion and people arrive and certain words and phrases in different ways.
5. Acknowledge that there is more than one way to go about education.
6. Valuing the role of data and research, but also recognizing that much of it needs context, and we want to be cautious when arguing for an absolute and widely applied policy or practice.
7. Respect the right for a minority opinion or smaller group with a set of beliefs, values and convictions about education.
8. Recognize the role of educational philosophy.
9. Be candid and leave time for discourse.
Learn more:
- https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/design-the-learning-of-your-learners-students-ideas/
- https://gustmees.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/document_fusionne.pdf
What is your greatest concern about the future of education? I’ve been asked this by more than a few people over the past year. My answer, it seems, is not provocative enough. My greatest concern is not the funding of higher education, the charter/choice debates, how to achieve access and opportunity, 21st century skills, reimagining the school, testing, the Common Core debates, re-inventing schools, protective core values of the Academy, the role of teachers, the role of technology in education or any specific issue. Some of these are personal passions that drive much of my work and thinking, but there is still something more fundamental. It has to do with how we discuss and consider the future of education. My greatest concern relates to our capacity (or what sometimes seems like a diminished capacity) to have deep, rigorous, candid, persistent, extended but open-minded public discourse about current and future policies, issues and innovations.
1. Recognize that any educational decision will have both affordances and limitations, and invite canid discourse about both.
2. Resist the urge the demonize the “other” side as if the person’s policies and decisions represent a grand conspiracy to take over the world.
3. Take our public discourse into the details and nuances.
4. Recognize that there are multiple paths to a given conclusion and people arrive and certain words and phrases in different ways.
5. Acknowledge that there is more than one way to go about education.
6. Valuing the role of data and research, but also recognizing that much of it needs context, and we want to be cautious when arguing for an absolute and widely applied policy or practice.
7. Respect the right for a minority opinion or smaller group with a set of beliefs, values and convictions about education.
8. Recognize the role of educational philosophy.
9. Be candid and leave time for discourse.
Learn more:
- https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/design-the-learning-of-your-learners-students-ideas/
- https://gustmees.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/document_fusionne.pdf