The Evolutionof Education: Empowering Learners To Think, Create, Share, and Do. By Chris Riedel

Hello to all!
I read the article below, and I have included a list of quotes that I found to be true, and align with my philosophy of education in the k-12 classroom.

The Evolution of Education: Empowering Learners To Think, Create, Share, and Do

* By Chris Riedel
* 01/30/09

As I was reading, I came across many social change websites. These sites ranged from environmental issues to nutrition. The connective thread between all of these sites was social change. This lead me to question the author when he said, "Kids should be doing collaborative social change...". Is it their responsibility to cause this change? Is it our responsibility to teach them how to change society? The public education system is strictly driven by standards, and although these standards do touch upon teaching about historical social movements, I have not seen a standard that asks students to change society.

However, as an eleventh grade teacher, I know students are aware of social injustices, and have seen their frustration develop when they don't know how to "change their communities". So many retreat into the world of social networking. Unfortunately, not necessarily to change the world.

I am of the belief that students do want to learn, and will take part in powerful thinking, if prompted to with meaningful assignments. Why not use what they already have at their fingertips to prompt that thinking. Who knows, a side effect may be a better community, a better country, a better world. (Side effects are not always a bad thing.)

"Thinking together can be powerful, but it can also be complicated."

I agree! I tried podcasting with 5 classes of 38 and just organizing is a mess!

"Using what we teach now is not enough to change the world. We need to think differently to make a difference in the world,... and we need to teach the next generation of leaders how to use the tools available to make that change."

So true! Many of my students don't know life without the internet, yet they chuckle when I say you-tube can be used for educational purposes. The chuckling stopped when I used a proxy to access youtube at my work site, and played a video that guided them through the process of MLA formatting. I did this two days before a research paper was due. ;)