Week Two

I believe that we do need to reimagine education, perhaps not every aspect of it but schooling should get children involved with their learning, encourage them to take chances and make mistakes, and teach them critical thinking. I don’t believe education should teach children to be passive learners, instead, I think children should be actively involved with their learning having the teacher as a supporter of learning, not a commander.  More and more research is indicating that passive memorization of facts for an exam is not effective learning; once the test is over the memorization of that information is no longer important and quickly forgotten. That’s why I feel we do need to reimagine parts of current education. We should be teaching our students skills that will benefit them throughout their lives, not just facts they will be quick to forget. I think all educators, current, and future must consider whether what they teach is really encouraging students to learn.

That being said, change is often much easier said than done. Education is a system that’s followed a similar path for decades, to stand up and change that is no easy matter. Educators enacting change often face a barrage of obstacles standing in their way. Perhaps the most difficult obstacle is simply, change is different. We’ve been following the same educational standards for a century so how can change meet the same standards that are expected of our students? Will different approaches, different materials, still provide our children with what they need to succeed in the future? This is often the concern of parents and students alike when faced with an educator or class doing something new. That educator will likely face plenty of backlash and concern over their new approach and that can be a terrifying hurdle for many educators to leap. Change also means setting out on your own, you don’t necessarily have the old system to inform your practice. Creating a whole new practice can be equally as daunting for teachers as the possible opposition to it. Standing up to a system that has been in place for so long is terrifying, to say the least, it’s no wonder some educators may feel it is an impossible feat.

Personally, I think change is exciting and positive. I don’t believe education is static, I think it should be continually changing and improving to provide children with the best possible opportunities. That is why I hope I can be a part of reimagining education to create a better experience for my own students.