The Blog of Ms. Mercer

Weblogg-ed » The Future of Teaching
Starts the boulder rolling rapidly down the embankment towards teacher preparation programs with the money quote:

Bottom line? As one of the participants said, “There are 1,300 teacher preparation programs that are preparing teachers for schools that none of us think should exist.” It was pretty edgy.

Then come James in incorporated subversion - education, media, community » Blog Archive » The unbearable arrogance of just about everyone with this response:

And how many teachers at the chalkface heard how their qualifications and experience as teachers was pretty useless really, how many people stood up and said ‘this is nonsense’ (apparently consensus was only lacking around the real pressure points???) and how many of the attendees work day in day out with FT teaching loads in government schools… or have done?

I am sick and tired of people who really know very little about education and teaching mouthing off about it.

Would you get this with dentistry, or aviation, or engineering? I doubt it. And while you quite rightly find people expressing opinions about, say, the health service… would you get them defining the ‘doctor of the future’? Hmmm… I think not.

This was the quote that got me:

At one point we were put into small groups and asked to come up with a job description and an ideal candidate for a “learning agent” 10 years down the road. The result was pretty interesting. None of the job descriptions were for traditional teachers. Few of the candidates’ qualifications emphasized schooling or even classroom experience. Instead, the group identified candidates that had a wide variety of life experiences and attributes, most centered on the ability to facilitate or connect, and an understanding of social technologies and deep collaboration. And my take away was that we’re looking at a future where there will be many different opportunities for working with kids and communities in a teaching role other than the traditional idea of what a teacher is.

Here is my question, is this truly the limit of the skills necessary for someone to be a learning agent for your 5 or 6 year old? Are those the skills needed to ensure a child will learn to read when left with that professional? I know some great deep collaborators who have a wide variety of experience. Few of them would be qualified to teach a child or even “facilitate” a child learning to read. Are you willing to trust your child’s literacy to this theory?

But lets look at that skills list again in particular, building communities and collaboration skills, hmm, most of the good teachers I know have that skill. Frankly, that’s the harder one to get. You can learn technology skills, but facilitation is harder.

I was in a training on Monday and Tuesday (we don’t even call them “seminars” in my district) for a program I already know how to use well (just like Jennie). I went there to help and watch the trainer (who is really good) because I’m going to be doing staff development trainings myself in the new year and wanted to pick up some of her mojo. I will be moving to a new position teaching computers and technology from grades one to six in the new year. I’m concerned about adjusting my instruction for the younger students. One of my fellow trainees was a kinder teacher who gave me some great advice. Her basic point was, they don’t hear what you tell them to do, they have to see you do it, do it themselves, or have another child tell them or show them how to do it. She uses technology in her classroom, but she obviously knew even before adding technology to her repertoire that: students learn more when they help to create that knowledge; hands-on with visuals is better; and students learn from each other. Ta da!