{"id":229140,"date":"2024-06-06T20:39:15","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T20:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/06\/the-simplest-way-to-change-education\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:17:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:17:41","slug":"the-simplest-way-to-change-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/06\/the-simplest-way-to-change-education\/","title":{"rendered":"The Simplest Way To Change Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\">\n<\/aside>\n<p id=\"h-by-terry-heick\">by <strong>Terry Heick<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Having gone on for decades now, discussions around the idea of ed reform are a bit tired.<\/p>\n<p>They seem pointless. Exhausting. A waste of time and creative bandwidth. Bottom-up change is exhausting and top-down change is exhausting for entirely different reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than state or federal policy, make schools and communities accountable to one another.<\/p>\n<p>This would require supporting those communities in various ways and supporting learners by expanding the definition of \u2018academic\u2019 success. <\/p>\n<p>Among the benefits, the improved visibility of our collective, shared challenge to educate every learner every day for every standard regardless of background, literacy, learning habits, or scheme would be visible to everyone\u2013kind of like opening the kitchen of a failing restaurant for the public to see; not to shame, but so that <em>everyone<\/em> could better understand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">See also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/the-future-of-learning\/things-schools-could-be-instead-of-schools\/\">What Else Schools Could Be Besides Schools?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019d be a mess at first, but it would also expose the overwheling problems with our standards and curriculum and other related flaws like those in assessment and instruction, for example.<\/p>\n<p>It might also, indrectly, reveal \u2018flaws\u2019 in our collective practices as a society (not just as schools and classrooms), but doesn\u2019t education already has enough on its plate? Parents might see our <em>collective<\/em> challenge as something whole and shared\u2013or at least would have the chance to.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/education\/why-parents-dont-understand-how-to-help\/\"><strong>Why Parents Don\u2019t Understand School<\/strong><\/a>, I said \u201cThis is a challenge (of schools and communities not speaking the same language) not new to education, but because of the unique position of educators as both experts and conduits between formal education and local communities, the burden falls to teachers to not simply paraphrase and translate but build and transfer capacity\u00a0from the inside out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But what if parents and families \u2018don\u2019t have time\u2019? Judging by our collective test scores, student apathy, teacher burnout statistics, graduation rates from high school to college, and general lack of widespread, genuinely inspirational teaching and learning, neither do we.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Accountability,\u2019 then, could become opportunity for <em>all<\/em> of us.<\/p>\n<p>Parents aren\u2019t clear what\u2019s being taught in school, not to mention how or why? That\u2019s a place to start.<\/p>\n<p>There are too few resources in communities? In schools? Another good place.<\/p>\n<p>Society at large doesn\u2019t understand formal learning\u2013especially K-12? What <em>exactly<\/em> is being taught and why? This might be one of the most significant challenges, but that\u2019s fine. We can all share, invest in, and thoughtfully approach it all together.<\/p>\n<p>Is literacy a problem at home, which is why it\u2019s a problem in schools\u2013or is it the other way around?<\/p>\n<p>Families have no real idea at all what\u2019s happening in the classroom? Force their complete involvement. If they can\u2019t, that\u2019s okay\u2013let\u2019s just all be transparent that schools aren\u2019t \u2018the problem.\u2019 If we can agree there, the rest can being a bit easier to sort out. <\/p>\n<p>Does this all sound impractical? Silly? More trouble than it\u2019s worth? Hopeless? There\u2019s another bit of data: we\u2019re trying open schools to families and no one understands how or why.<\/p>\n<p>Isn\u2019t <em>that<\/em> what\u2019s crazy?<\/p>\n<p>What happens when schools and families don\u2019t talk? <\/p>\n<p>Or worse, when they couldn\u2019t even if they tried?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachthought.com\/education\/schools-familes-cant-communicate\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] by Terry Heick Having gone on for decades now, discussions around the idea of ed reform are a bit tired. They seem pointless. Exhausting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}