Monday, September 27, 2010

Education Nation Frustration


Veteran science teacher Anthony Cody works with a team of experienced science teacher-coaches who support the many novice teachers in his school district. He is a National Board-certified teacher and an active member of the Teacher Leaders Network. He is passionate about education reform and teaching for change and deep learning. Cody writes that NBC's Education Nation was promoted with a great deal of fanfare, with the event promising to inspire a rich dialogue about education reform. Instead, he found that his post's to the official Facebook had been blocked. It is his opinion that this fits into a bigger picture and that they do not actually wish to enter into a genuine dialogue about education reform. Listening in, but not weighing is frustrating many educators who blog about education.

The issue exposed by Cody is one of credibility: The teachers were pro- Dept. of Education, parental involvement was blocked and they featured unbalanced panels. Read the full article at Teacher Magazine.

Slide and definition by Bill
Ferriter
http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical

3 comments:

Linda Straube (Ms. S) said...

Thanks, JudyG, for sharing this.

To really explore change,it does seem that we should be hearing more substantive dialogue with a greater range of viewpoints expressed at "Education Nation". Here's another article from today's Washington Post.

One quote: "People seeing Waiting for Superman should be mobilized to improve education. They just need to be willing to think outside of the narrow box that the film-makers have constructed to define what needs to be done."

Judy Gressel said...

Tom Whitby offered another thoughtful perspective:
"We need educational leadership to step up and replace the business people and politicians who are stealing what should be our issue. We need educators on every level to be aware of not just their problems, but how they fit into the big picture. We need to take responsibility for our actions. We expect nothing less from our students. We need to model that which we teach. We need to be educated about our profession in order to guide the discussions to a positive outcome for reform."

Linda Straube (Ms. S) said...

And Arne Duncan adds his voice, summarized here by npr.