Dialogue #1

Plato used them wisely. Einstein and Galileo called them thought experiments, but they are in effect quite similar, so why not educators? It all started with a colleague of mine who reminded me of their value in a world that seems to value intellectual property even less. Then I saw a quote:

Fighting against a sense of despair
will only make it worse.
Instead of letting despair feed on itself,
do something
positive and proactive to break
the pattern.

I have recently learned that loving children and education is not enough. Watching television recently, I heard Duncan, Gingrich, and Sharpton pontificate on the subject of school reform knowing that they have not been in classrooms or schools (except for Duncan). Ironically, however, I agreed that accountability is the problem on all levels: teachers, students, parents, and administrators. I wondered all day about how and why our individual solutions get lost in the morass of bureaucracy.

Riding the bus and train this weekend, I saw 23 billboards promoting services, making announcements about new International Baccalaureate (IB) partner schools, and charter schools. When did reform become a matter of publicity? Working in a school daily I see firsthand how many of these initiatives never make it to the child. All these programs have been approved by whom? And when you see them in place the paid employee of the program is often watching a video on his/her computer because there are no students using his/her services.

Having a program does not mean using a program. When did we start teaching programs instead of children? Accountability is great but who decides what accountability is and how it will be measured? Does anybody truly know which program or approach to reform can and/or will work? Who do we trust? Most of us know that we need to invite students daily to learn and that measuring what students have learned begins with a relationship not a practice test. What, then, do we need?

It seems that even if we are not asked directly, to maintain our sanity and our own visions we need to dare to believe our ideas matter. What do you think? Einstein knew that imagination or vision was more important than facts or data. In other words where’s the vision? Where do we want to go? I want to imagine a world where a school or system believes what we do matters and can change the world. Perhaps this is a beginning? Let’s go back to thinking: our minds, ideas, and creativity matter. Let’s begin to dialogue again.

Forget your institution, your school, your classroom, and give yourself permission to think again. Do not despair, repair. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.