Reform That is Needed.

In the hallways, classrooms, cafeteria, I hear students begging for change. They don’t express it in pithy slogans, they don’t YouTube it like some edubloggers think, instead they check out. They ‘disengage’. They call school “boring.” They shoot for 50% in a course. They skip class. These are teenagers asking for reform, for change, for a chance to escape the confines of forced servitude.

These are the students who can’t figure a way to fit into our student model. The student who sits, listens, completes, celebrates, in incredibly linear terms.

I agree with Sir Ken Robinson when he states that “reform is not enough.” The change that is necessary is major. The change that is needed is a “revolution.”

The revolution is systemic, no doubt about it. We need to change the structure of our entire understanding of school. It needs to be complete and utterly transformative. But it doesn’t start with the trustees or the superintendents.

It starts with teachers and students. It starts with open conversations between colleagues, it starts with open conversations with students. We need to remove the blindfold of expectations, curriculum, assessment, and learning. We need to re-focus what school is for: not to prepare someone for university or college, but to prepare them for a life as a learner.

Today, on the Day of Blogging for Real Education Reform, I will not only write to the wind and send this out to people who read blogs, who consider reform necessary, but I’ll start and continue those conversations. I’ll keep conversing with my students. I’ll remember that today is yet another day of learning, exploration and inquiry.

Today is a day when the revolution continues to move.