I had heard this statement before. The first time was at the JMU’s Content Teaching Academy where I had the opportunity to learn from some really wonderful fellow educators and technologists. I’ve read about it, or versions of it, in many of the Edublogs I follow. I heard it again today, during David Warlick’s session at the District’s Closing the Gap Summit. Every time I hear or read about it, it really hits home for me. This is the reason why educators do what we do — we strive to prepare our students for the today’s world and the future that lies ahead of them. However, it is more important than ever before in the history of education that we prepare our students for their tomorrows without resorting to yesterday’s methods.

So, what was so wrong with our yesterdays? Absolutely nothing, really.

I can still remember Monday nights when my family gathered around the TV to watch one of the four channels available, physically getting up to change the channels. Luckily, we all liked MASH so there wasn’t much arguing over what to watch, although we did argue over who would do the channel changing.

But for our students today, this scenario is completely foreign. It is not their reality nor is it their future.

Why is this a problem? It’s a problem because all too often we find ourselves teaching the way we were taught. It’s what we know and understand best. But yesterday’s teaching does not match our students’ reality any more than the scenario above does.

Let’s imagine we have mastered teaching in today’s world, employing current methodologies that are relevant and meaningful for our students. Even given that, how can we possibly prepare our students to succeed in a world that is changing so rapidly? In his presentation Warlick stated, “For the first time in history our job as educators is to prepare our children for a future we cannot clearly describe.”

OK….so we are supposed to teach using new methodologies to prepare our students for a future about which we have absolutely no clue….feeling overwhelmed, yet?

While this is a totally understandable feeling (and one that isn’t all that unfamiliar to most of us in education), I hope that at the same time you are also feeling excitement regarding the potential there is in today’s classrooms for some truly amazing learning experiences. The Flat Classroom Project, where students from different parts of the globe collaborated on projects together, is a great example of 21st Century learning. More than ever before, learning is no longer restricted to what happens within the classroom’s four walls. Teachers today have the opportunity to increasingly become facilitators of learning rather than distributors of knowledge. In the 21st century classroom, our students have the opportunity to become active participants in the learning process rather than passive consumers.

So while feeling overwhelmed is understandable, please don’t let it extinguish the excitement you may feel about the wonderful possibilities there are in today’s classrooms.

For those of you who were unable to attend Warlick’s session, it was awesome! Here are some his resource links.

http://davidwarlick.com/wordpress/?p=254

http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OSOWSessionOutline

http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurStudentsOurWorlds

Would it surprise you to know that the dropout rate among new teachers is higher than the average dropout rate of students over the same four-year period? And the biggest reason why is NOT poor salaries. Check out Pete O’Reilly’s post from The Pulse.

For Feel Good Friday, here is a nice video done by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. In it they remind us that life, and especially one’s education, is not a just a means to an end, but rather something to experience and treasure.

Download Video: Posted by tekkieteacher at TeacherTube.com.

I hope all of you are able to take some time to sing and dance!

There’s an online conference that started today called the K12 Online Conference 2007. It’s peaked my interest so I thought I’d share.

I’m currently watching the pre-conference keynote presentation by David Warlick. Many of the other presenters author blogs you’ll find listed in my blogroll (at right).

The entire conference is totally free and totally online. So watch and read at your convenience!