The most important step in making an Education Nation a
reality is not a greater investment of dollars, but a greater understanding of
what this new educational system should look like. It will require bringing the
many "islands of excellence" featured on Edutopia.org to the center
of this nation, moving the edges of change to the middle.
So this book is my effort to "curate" the marvelous
Edutopia.org collection of films, articles, and multimedia features from the
past few years. I've organized this collection according to what I see as the
six "edges" of innovations redefining schools, teaching, and
learning. They are:
1. The Thinking Edge Changing our thinking about teaching and
learning and calling a truce to the wasteful education wars that pit one school
of thought against another -- from the reading wars of phonics skills vs.
"whole language" and children's literature, to the debate over 21st
Century skills vs. "core curriculum." Just as hybrid vehicles are an
important solution for our environment, hybrid thinking -- taking the best of
differing approaches -- will improve our schools.
2. The Edge of Curriculum All around the country, schools and
districts, as well as afterschool programs, are redefining what is taught and
how it's assessed. Importantly, through project-based learning, creative
educators are relating curricula to students' lives, so their students never
ask the most frequently asked question in most schools: "Why do we need to
learn this?"
3. The Technology Edge From the Internet to mobile devices,
online curricula and courses, technology-based content, platforms, and
experiences are enabling students to learn more, earlier. And helping teachers
make the learning process more visible to themselves, their students, and
parents.
4. The Edge of Time and Place Learning can now truly be
24/7/365 rather than limited to what happens in a classroom 6 hours a day, 5
days a week, 31 weeks a year. As my last blog post described, in many places
around the country, the summer months are becoming the "third
semester," advancing, rather than delaying, student learning, especially
for lower-income families who cannot afford the camps, travel, and enrichment
activities other parents can.
5. The Co-Teaching Edge Rather than the traditional model of
one teacher in a room with 30 students, smart teachers are involving a team of
"co-educators" in the learning of students, from parents -- a child's
first and most important teacher -- to other teachers and content experts in
the community and online.
6. The Youth Edge Today's youth are becoming the first
generation to carry powerful mobile devices wherever they go. They are used to
instant access to information and their entire social network. They learn in a
fundamentally different way than we over-40s did (and certainly those of us
way-over-40) and they are teaching us how to restructure this new educational
system.
