Circadian rhythms. Seasons. Climate.
Lake Turkana. Berengia.
China. Greece. Mesoamerica.
East. West. Expansion.
Outer Space. Inner Space. Exploration.
Learning. Digital learning.
Change. Continuity.
The ritual of reading the newspaper on my screened porch provides me with the opportunity to creature-watch, to observe just as surreptitiously as the best of people-watchers on the downtown mall. On a recent, almost-warm spring day, bumble bees lumbered their way around redbuds in bloom, mumbling to each other about who knows what. I lowered the newspaper, struck that today’s headlines mean nothing to the bees or the redbuds. The bees and the redbuds just keep doing what they always have done, day in and out, seasons coming and going with face-watch rhythm, unaware of our research, our travels, our connections to their world or theirs to ours. Or are they?
In a recent article in the journal, Science (May 9, 2008), Anne Chartamantier, scientist at France’s National Center for Scientific Research and co-author, used five decades of data to reach a conclusion that despite global warming, members of at least one English titbird population appears to have adjusted their breeding season earlier and earlier so that chicks hatch when their key food source, winter moth caterpillars, are in greatest supply. However, while this could be good news for some bird species, plenty of evidence exists, according to the authors, that many other bird populations will not make similar survival changes as temperature rises. Rather, they may be more like the proverbial frog sitting in a cold pot of water who continues to sit there as the temperature rises towards the boiling point, oblivious to an imminent demise.
I like to believe that we educators may have more similarity to the titbirds than the frog. But, after thousands of recent learning walks in classrooms across the country, a consultant friend tells me that educators mostly still maintain the chalk and talk, direct instruction traditions of 20th Century mass production teaching, regardless of their students' apparent lack of engagement. Use of emerging technologies of the 21st Century remains rare in our schools, despite the wide open opportunity to engage young people on their own learning turf through social “net-learning” innovations available through Web 2.0 applications. Even low-tech engagement options such as project-based learning, writing process, inquiry learning, and seminar discussions remain the exception rather than the rule. In other words, we are content to send children into the schools of our past, rather than into schools that prepare them for their future.
So what drives recognition of the need to change, and the capability to do so, or not? This question, I believe, is as relevant to the eco-learning systems found today in our schools as it is to the natural systems found in my backyard, your backyard, and elsewhere around the world. After all, educational change is a risky proposition. Perhaps the answer lies in the flights of educational test pilots who are not risk averse when it comes to changing teaching traditions.
One such educator whom I know is coming up with answers, with the help of students, community partners, and staff. Darah Bonham, Director of CATEC and professional blogger, has embarked on a journey to change the face of the technical and career education curriculum. He’s a believer in using Web 2.0 learning tools to remove classroom walls and in engaging the entrepreneurial spirit of the young people he serves so that they see themselves as innovators right here, right now. He champions the use of blogging, video web-casting, wikis, and real- time, image rich, online discussion formats; and opportunities to learn the digital music industry, LEED certified construction standards, and bio-medical skill sets to boot. Fortunately, educational test pilots such as Darah push the boundaries of how we define school- and learning- rather than allowing NCLB to keep them on the ground. Check out this 21st Century customizing leader here .