Why School?

    When looking at the 6 areas of unlearning and relearning ideas for educators that were discussed, I try to evaluate myself as though this were part of a rubric for my blended practices. There are those that stick out to me as more of a friendly face, and then there are those that seem to be more of an acquaintance.

            As for the friendly faces, these are the areas where I find myself to be more likely to take on without hesitation. “These may include the idea of being a master learner”, “Discover don’t deliver”, and “Do Real Work for Real Audiences”. I myself have been inquiring about bringing their community, and world around them, into the classroom. As I have been planning this with our health educator to tie in some cross content curriculum, what I feel we should look further into is how I can better equip them for future issues. I want my students to be able to identify issues that concern them, research that given situation, collaborate with peers near and far (possibly another school) and deliver their plan for addressing these matters. But first, I must put a focus on giving them the tools to become that learner in any situation and then allow them the freedom and not narrow or limit their creations.

            Now, for the areas that are not as familiar, I need to find a way around my struggles of sharing and talking with strangers. This may mean that I need to take one step at a time with the support of a teacher who has mastered this. I may need to “share” my ideas with others before acting on them and find what worked and did not work. Sharing should be something that is easy for me, and maybe I can say that the sharing between colleagues in class and at my work is easy, but I need to work on setting up more of an online portfolio of my work so that I may broaden my connection in my professional world. As for the talk with my students about identifying good vs. bad strangers, it may be difficult since my students are so young, but they need to learn this, as they are most likely using these tools at home and not receiving the education before jumping in to online conversations. It reminds me of our lesson last year on credible sources. I feel that I can definitely take these on, but these will just need more attention than some others.