1. What is the main argument being made by the speaker?
The main focus of the speaker is that education reform is great, but right now the system is not reforming to the correct goal. He said that education needed to switch from employment education to entrepreneur education. Right now the school system is putting all its focus into improving test scores because they think it will prepare students for real world employment. They are missing, however, the creative side of education where the students learn practical employable skills. He said that education is about enhancing human capacity. The current system is doing the exact opposite of what it needs to do. It is trying to classify all students into one lump that needs to reach a certain test score. Everyone is not the same and this does not show the teaching ability of the instructor or the learning ability of the students. To have a successful system, he argues that the curriculum followed should be personalized and strength based. This will help to give each student the ability to see a problem, find a solution, and see that solution implemented.
2. Do agree or disagree with his argument?
I agree that the current system needs some work. While test scores can be an accurate reflection of knowledge to some degree, it is not a good way to learn what active role each individual could play in society. If the system focuses all of its attention on getting the students to regurgitate its information to get higher test scores, it misses out on the opportunity to nurture the individual abilities of those students. In a classroom setting it is nearly impossible to teach each student according to his or her learning style, but lumping an entire education system across the country into one set of standards is not the correct approach either. It would be interesting if the schools could give a learning assessment at the beginning of each year so that similar learners could be placed in the same class. This way, each class could be taught individually according to what style works best for those students. It would make it easier for the teachers too so they would not have to worry about trying to use different methods all at the same time. There needs to be something different, because right now the system is not helping those involved.
3. Make connections between the ideas presented in this Keynote and concepts explored in this course. Be specific, use quotes from at least 5 course readings, your response should be around 500 - 800 words.
One quote that fits in with the keynote speech is as follows: “The nature of texts changes as writers and readers spend increasing amounts of screen time to produce and consume them” (NCTE, 2008). At first this quote is hard to understand. I think that is why I chose it. After examining it and the context at which it is used, I have a better view of what it is trying to say. We as readers can take the way something is written and turn in to many viewpoints. This can be tied to education. Students can take the books or any instructional material and have many different viewpoints about it. To tie this into the keynote speech, we as teachers should work and use the viewpoints the students have to guide them for the future. We should not judge them and ridicule the views of the students, we should try to enhance on them.
“Some Web evangelists say children should be evaluated for their proficiency on the Internet just as they are tested on their print reading comprehension.” (Rich, M, 2008). Just like the Keynote speaker said, the entire current system is based on test scores. While test scores are important, that should not be the sole focus. Like this article suggested, children should be evaluated with their use of technology just as much as book learning. Technology plays such an integral part in todays society. The kids are surrounded by it and it might be surprising to learn how much more proficient they are with one thing than another. We as teachers should sometimes emphasize the specific things these kids are good at rather than pushing them to only “do well” in school. The traditional school system simply does not work for everyone.
The school system is currently set up to benefit today’s society. “Our institutional and professional lives often guide the sort of topics that we write about.(Davies & Marchant)” Sometimes teachers give prompts or topics to write about, other times students are asked to choose a topic of their own. No matter what, students write. We should be prompting students to write about things that will benefit them in the future. By choosing topics that the kids take interest in, the school system can focus more on the writing skills. We as teachers should guide the kids into what to write about, but we need to focus more on what will benefit them down the road and not just society right now. “According to Lunsford, the writing we produce is not getting worse. Instead, it is simply adapting to the modern world” (Karp). Kids are not unintelligent because they cannot follow the old system. They are simply relating the information they are given to the methods they know how to use.
Throughout this whole course, i could not help but think that we as teachers need to adapt and change the way we view instruction. We need to take into consideration that kids are exposed to different things. The assignments we assign as teachers should be adaptive to the modern world. This interacts with the keynote speech in that we should be preparing kids for their future. This course provided all kinds of support for technology in school and kids should be exposed to it. The quote by Lunsford emphasizes that we need to adapt and adapting will lead kids to pursue things that will benefit them for the future.
"Fundamental changes in the economy, jobs, and businesses have reshaped industry and the nature of work” (NCTE, 2009). Our society has changed all the way down to the school system. This includes everything from jobs to everyday interactions. I mentioned in a previous blog posting that basic restaurant jobs even require computer use. Since the nature of the job has changed, we as teachers should change our teaching styles to adapt. The style of teachings used in the past might not necessarily work now. If we want kids to be ready for the future, then we should be exposing them to what they are going to work with later on, not just what is needed now. This is exactly what the keynote speaker was talking about. We need to stop focusing on creating a standardized system to give good test score results. Test scores do not show if the students have gained real problem solving skills for everyday problems. From this course I learned that one of the biggest ways to connect to today’s youth is through technology. It can be implemented in various ways into the current curriculum to provide a more stimulating and enriching learning environment for the students. By focusing less on test scores and more on the students needs, we would see a drastic change for the better.
Literature Cited
Quote 1-
Quote 2-
“Our institutional and professional lives often guide the sort of topics that we write
about.”
Quote 3-
Quote 4-
"Fundamental changes in the economy, jobs, and businesses have reshaped industry and the nature of work”
Quote 5-
“The nature of texts changes as writers and readers spend increasing amounts of screen time to produce and consume them.”
