Education Must Change, Part II: The qualities and skills required to change it.

Thank you for subscribing to Storyteller, a monthly digital series about faith, family, life, and learning.

Welcome back, Readers!  

Last month, I wrote about the shift happening in education today.  This month, I will write about the qualities and skills required to lead that shift.

First, a story.  

My daughter Nikki competed with her young self every day.  She would spend entire days teaching herself how to do things that her older siblings could do, like how to snap her fingers. She even disproved the theory that tongue curling is genetic by practicing for hours on end, finally training her tongue to obey. 

Once, when I was dressed and ready to leave for a business meeting, she asked to come along. With a sad smile, I told her that this was a meeting for grownups only.  She was not dissuaded, but rather, put her hands on her hips, looked me up and down, went into my closet and retrieved a pair of high heels, which she stepped into. 

With a determined look, she asked me, “Now can I go?” 

I suppressed a giggle when I realized that the only difference she saw in the two of us was that I was wearing high heels. I loved that quiet sense of determination that has defined her throughout her life.  

Now she has a three-year-old.

Now she has a three-year-old daughter Lainey who is her clone in that regard. We were together recently and I observed Lainey watching thoughtfully as her brothers and older cousins hopped from rock to rock along a path in the mountains. The rocks were spaced too far apart for her to hop from one to the other as the others did. Alone in her quest, I watched as she determinedly climbed onto the first rock. I moved closer to reach out if she needed help, thinking she might realize that they were too far apart for her to hop safely from one to the other. 

As I neared I heard her talking to herself, “you can DO this,” she quietly declared, and made the leap from the first rock to the second.  It wasn’t graceful, but she caught the rock and gripped it, pulling herself up on top with a great effort and a hefty dose of courage.  Once on top, she repeated the process, and the declaration, until she completed the course and ran off. My heart leaped once I realized that she had that same quiet determination that I saw in her mother every day as she grew into the accomplished young woman that she is today.  Quiet determination is what we all need as we seek to navigate our challenges and face this constantly changing future.

In the opening faculty meeting at Principia School this year, 

I compared Bill Murray’s character in the movie Groundhog Day to Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Pippi, the heroine of the Pippi Longstocking series.

The idea of this comparison came from an editorial in the Christian Science Sentinel.*

You might be wondering what these three characters, and my daughter and granddaughter, have to do with the great shift in education that is happening today.  Let’s start with Phil Connors, the character Bill Murray plays in GroundHog Day.  Phil is a cynical TV weatherman who finds himself trapped in a time loop, somewhat similar to the time loop our education system finds itself in. Each day, he repeats the same experience, hoping for a different outcome with the goal in mind of getting back where he started from.  It is easy to identify the fatal flaws here, for both Phil, and for today’s educational landscape.  Both are caught in a repetitious loop.  Phil’s goal is to get back to where he was before the time loop began. He eventually cracks the code of the time loop and walks away a better man for having had the experience.  

It’s all good, but is it?

The time loop that education finds itself in can only be broken by teacher leaders. Education must move forward to new vistas, and it can’t move in that direction if we continue to try to improve on an educational model that is no longer relevant. 

We need to change the model, and the key to doing that is to transform our teaching methods.  Today’s high-tech, low-engagement world is requiring more of our teachers than ever before.  Not only do they need to deliver the content that our students will need,

to understand the world in front of them, but they will need to model and teach the qualities and skills our students will need to be successful in this fast-moving, ever-changing world around us.

Alice is the character in the book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, who fell down a rabbit hole and landed in a whimsical, fantasy world called Wonderland. The story features a world that is magical, unpredictable, ever-changing, and surreal.  Though our teachers won’t encounter such fantastical situations as chaotic tea parties, nonsensical trials, and caterpillars giving cryptic advice, they will be teaching their classes as the world experiences undeclared drone wars, technological advances that change career paths, and artificial intelligence that mimics human logic and reasoning. As we witness these changes in the world happening on a daily basis, our educators cannot continue to hang tight to our dogged determination that delivering content is our main responsibility in the classroom.  We are experiencing changes in this world that are already ahead of us and we are racing to keep up.

All of this begs the question, “What should we be nurturing in our teachers today that will have them modeling the skills that will have our students thinking and acting courageously, adventurously, and with a deep level of curiosity and competency?  Let’s look at Alice.  She landed unexpectedly in a fantasy world and without hesitation she started to explore it.  She approached that world with a sense of wonder, curiosity, perseverance, and resourcefulness.  She showed a great sense of empathy along the way and maintained her politeness and respect, all the while.

Now let’s look at one of my favorite childhood characters, Pippi Longstocking.  You might recall that the fictional character Pippi had superhuman strength.  I am not suggesting that our teachers work to develop superhuman powers, though they sometimes appear to have even those stored in their wheelhouses.  Pippi was also kindhearted and caring.  She was lively and energetic with a wonderful adventuresome spirit. Her childlike approach to situations allowed her to break through conventional norms and embrace the new and unexpected as she explored the world around her.

Let’s leave behind the age-old Groundhog Day model of education and lean into the inevitable changes needed to prepare our teachers to be mentors, coaches, and models in the classroom. Let’s help our teachers to be Nikkis, Laineys, Alices, and Pippis! Let’s unleash their innate skills and talents and encourage them to be the lamp that shines the new light of education brightly for our students so they have all that they need to meet this new world head-on, with confidence, resilience, empathy, and a wonderful sense of adventure!  These are the beginning steps to moving education forward as we embrace the demands of a fast-paced, ever-evolving future.

Thank you for joining the Storyteller community! Stay tuned for Part III of this

Storyteller series arriving March 17. I'm excited to share the examples I'm seeing of the shift in education happening NOW!

Until then, let's stay in touch!

www.merrysorrells.com