While I do not blog very often, Lisa Thumann was kind enough to tag me in a meme, and then bring it to my attention. Since I happen to think she’s pretty great, I owe it to her to respond.

The meme is to list 5 changes you’d want to see in education. Here are mine.

1. Teachers need to not yell. I believe that yelling indicates you’ve lost control. When a teacher has a good relationship with students that transcends the power struggle, yelling can be placed to the side. I can recall Dan Meyer talking about standing to the side of the student when conversing, as opposed to the top-down, finger-wagging style so often seen.

2. I wish more teachers knew how to wade through the misinformation. There are too many folks preaching too many messages, and I don’t think many teachers are equipped with a knowledge of theory through which to analyze the messages coming at them through all of these channels. There is a lot of incorrect stuff being said, under the guise of being in the 21st century.

3. I wish education had a stronger focus on foreign language. Being bilingual has opened so many doors for me throughout life, yet my class is often relegated to the lowest rung of the ladder.  I wish elementary schools taught classes in both languages. I wish math class happened in English and English class happend in Spanish. I say that slightly tongue-in-cheek but you get the drift. I think school should be taught in more than one language, suffice it to say.

4. I wish education put more emphasis on the whole student. I love hearing friends talk about teaching their kids to care. I support that and wish we did it more often.

5. I wish education was less influenced by high-stakes testing. This is obvious, but the focus on major test scores has done much to harm education. Others have written way more about this than I have.

Ok so there it is, my two cents.
Chris