Yours question keeps me awake at night. How do we change a system that's designed to resist change? I think Substack has a great pool of educators and related professionals. I would love to see this community consolidate the passionate and use this platform to instigate greater things. I'm giving much thought to the how, and do my best to model solutions through my own practice.
I agree wholeheartedly. As far as I'm concerned, we can't break the old models fast enough, (though in many cases they seem to be breaking themselves). Though how we implement the new models is beyond me. My oldest child went to a lab school here in Canada, which was very much what you describe in this post, and a fabulous experience for her in so many ways. And the idea of the school was precisely for it to try things out and report back to the public boards of education. They seem to be reporting, but it's clear to me that the public schools couldn't care less, or don't have the capacity to make a single one of the recommended changes. So yes you have to have lab schools, but you also have to have a public system that can adapt to what we learn from them. Do you feel hopeful that schools can be 'rebuilt' any time soon? My two younger kids have always hated school, which only means they're sane, and I feel like a terrible parent for continuing to send them and yet we have no alternative. I want to say to every other parent I meet " what are we DOING? Why are we accepting that the place we send our kids to every day is a place where they are regularly bullied and abused by the adults, where they're not respected or cared for, where they just sit and are told to listen to things they don't care about?...I could go on and on and on. And this is in Canada...anyway thank you so much for this post and for everything that you do. I'm not a teacher (used to teach at university) but am very interested in education reform and I've been enjoying your work a great deal.
Thank you for sharing your comments. I was born in Vancouver and spent some time in that system, so I can understand your resistance.
"Do you feel hopeful that schools can be 'rebuilt' any time soon?" I guess it depends upon what you think of as soon. I believe that over the next 5-10 years there will be significant change, not because I see much impetus coming from inside the structures, but because the outside realities will be so disruptive. AI has already thrown a spanner into the gearbox, and I imagine it will continue to break things. But there's a lot of resistance to change - so many have so much invested in keeping things as they are. People are generally afraid of what they don't understand.
I think there will be a lot more people that pursue home schooling in various configurations as an alternative, because the technological infrastructure and content is now in place for students to learn really quickly. I thinking the biggest obstacle at this moment is university admissions that largely depends upon standardised testing.
I'd love to learn more about your lab school. Could you point me in the right direction?
I would have home schooled if I could have, because I believe my children would have been much happier. But it’s not a great solution, since we lose the families who are the most likely and able to take action to build a better educations system, to home schooling and private schooling.
I agree that it may be a good solution for the student but a bad one for the school. I guess it's a judgement call based on the quality of the school, the nature of the student, and the situation of the care-givers. I'm willing to participate in social improvement activities in some domains, but not at the expense of my child's well being and potential.
I love everything about this post! I can feel your passion for teaching your students radiate through your words. It’s easy to forget that as teachers, we are caught up in the same broken system as our students. It’s easy to become complacent and just think, “that’s just the way it is” without examining our own role in co-creating meaningful school experiences. You share some excellent recommendations!
Where do I sign up! I’ve never felt so empowered than after reading this! How do I start?
Awesome… thank you!
I don't know why I didn't mention this earlier. You might be interested in seeing my efforts; perhaps there's some ideas her that might work for you:
https://ryanbromley.substack.com/i/160398222/prototyping-the-future
Thanks Lezlie, that's lovely to hear.
Yours question keeps me awake at night. How do we change a system that's designed to resist change? I think Substack has a great pool of educators and related professionals. I would love to see this community consolidate the passionate and use this platform to instigate greater things. I'm giving much thought to the how, and do my best to model solutions through my own practice.
I agree wholeheartedly. As far as I'm concerned, we can't break the old models fast enough, (though in many cases they seem to be breaking themselves). Though how we implement the new models is beyond me. My oldest child went to a lab school here in Canada, which was very much what you describe in this post, and a fabulous experience for her in so many ways. And the idea of the school was precisely for it to try things out and report back to the public boards of education. They seem to be reporting, but it's clear to me that the public schools couldn't care less, or don't have the capacity to make a single one of the recommended changes. So yes you have to have lab schools, but you also have to have a public system that can adapt to what we learn from them. Do you feel hopeful that schools can be 'rebuilt' any time soon? My two younger kids have always hated school, which only means they're sane, and I feel like a terrible parent for continuing to send them and yet we have no alternative. I want to say to every other parent I meet " what are we DOING? Why are we accepting that the place we send our kids to every day is a place where they are regularly bullied and abused by the adults, where they're not respected or cared for, where they just sit and are told to listen to things they don't care about?...I could go on and on and on. And this is in Canada...anyway thank you so much for this post and for everything that you do. I'm not a teacher (used to teach at university) but am very interested in education reform and I've been enjoying your work a great deal.
Thank you for sharing your comments. I was born in Vancouver and spent some time in that system, so I can understand your resistance.
"Do you feel hopeful that schools can be 'rebuilt' any time soon?" I guess it depends upon what you think of as soon. I believe that over the next 5-10 years there will be significant change, not because I see much impetus coming from inside the structures, but because the outside realities will be so disruptive. AI has already thrown a spanner into the gearbox, and I imagine it will continue to break things. But there's a lot of resistance to change - so many have so much invested in keeping things as they are. People are generally afraid of what they don't understand.
I think there will be a lot more people that pursue home schooling in various configurations as an alternative, because the technological infrastructure and content is now in place for students to learn really quickly. I thinking the biggest obstacle at this moment is university admissions that largely depends upon standardised testing.
I'd love to learn more about your lab school. Could you point me in the right direction?
A really great school https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/home/jics
Cheers for that.
I would have home schooled if I could have, because I believe my children would have been much happier. But it’s not a great solution, since we lose the families who are the most likely and able to take action to build a better educations system, to home schooling and private schooling.
I agree that it may be a good solution for the student but a bad one for the school. I guess it's a judgement call based on the quality of the school, the nature of the student, and the situation of the care-givers. I'm willing to participate in social improvement activities in some domains, but not at the expense of my child's well being and potential.
I love everything about this post! I can feel your passion for teaching your students radiate through your words. It’s easy to forget that as teachers, we are caught up in the same broken system as our students. It’s easy to become complacent and just think, “that’s just the way it is” without examining our own role in co-creating meaningful school experiences. You share some excellent recommendations!
Thanks Adrian, that means a lot to me. I know how much you invest yourselves into your students and your practice - we need an army of such teachers.