Everything has a beginning

The time has come to begin fresh.  This is a beginning without an end I hope.  It’s an effort to try and connect with those of you out there who want to see change and bring change.  We are at a crossroads now.  Education is the epicenter of it all and I feel that it’s time to speak out and speak up about what can be done, what the issues are, what might be some of the solutions and what steps we can take to get to where we want to be as educators in the future. Too much time and effort is wasted on the wrong curriculums, subjects and methods.  There’s a better way and through communication and cooperation we can find it.  I truly believe that the chance to bring the change we desperately need to education and the future is here and now.  So starting today I am going to blog as much as I can about it.  I want to share with everyone my experiences, my lessons, my perspective and thoughts and ideas that come and go in my head when dealing with education.  I have been in the business of educating people since 2005 and in that time I have gained some perspective that has shaped my approach to teaching and how I can connect best with my students.  In my work, age doesn’t matter.  I teach eight year-olds all the way up to forty year-olds, it’s part of the beauty I guess. The beauty is we never stop learning, but there’s got to be a better way than the way our archaic standardized systems of education are doing it. So I am ready to splash in and get wet and maybe, hopefully we can dig below the surface and find a way out of this mess.

Accountability

I truly believe that there is a better way, and it’s readily available.  It starts with us teachers and what we do to prepare ourselves for our class and/or individual students.  People have taken away our respect, and their children are growing up showing us that we are not respected and that is just f^&% unacceptable, so we got to take back our respect, it’s on us, period.  No more excuses and no more complaining.  What are we going to do about it? It starts with us teachers and educators.  If we make the conscious effort to take charge and make the changes we always complain about then the system will change with us.  But it starts with us, I’m sure of that.  We got to look in the mirror and face the facts.  Too much blame going around and not enough accountability. People in general don’t want to be accountable, they don’t want real responsibility. They just want to get paid and have job security and that is just not good enough in my opinion.  So we start there…

Taking action

It continues with our own education.  I am not talking about college to get a degree in pedagogy and a master’s in education. That’s fine and a good start I suppose, but not sufficient.  I am talking about the effort needed to improve ourselves, and continuously make progress as human beings.  Podcasts, books, blogs, conventions, twitter, social media and TED talks offer us an invaluable trove of information we can utilize, share and spread to others.  These resources are invaluable thanks to the internet and the information age we live in now.  We are living during the most exciting, innovative, and creative time on planet earth.  We have access to more knowledge and information than can be quantified and measured.  These resources are our tools to taking us into the future of education and leaving the traditional post-industrial age of education in the dust.  The beauty of these resources is that you don’t need a lot of equipment to access and share them.  We will touch on this later on, in detail, but it’s important to mention in this first post.  I just read a fantastic book ‘Tribes’ by Seth Godin.  Mr. Godin talks about how we need more leaders in this world, we need them because they help bring the change we so desperately need.  We don’t have enough of them, and we also have a wrong interpretation of what a leader is.  You don’t need to be a captain of a football team, or a president of some organization to lead. No sir. You just need to take action on your own. When you take action others will follow, no matter what.  It requires faith, and risk but if you believe strongly enough you get there. People are afraid of risk, but it’s the only way we make progress.  We can take calculated risks with a belief and faith in what we do.  I believe that we can change education and I have faith that it starts here.  When people say you are crazy for doing something, that is their insecurity talking, you got to ignore it and keep pushing forward.  Nothing would ever get done if we listened to all the naysers, fact! So we got to step up, make a commitment and own it.  Your commitment, passion, belief and faith will always bring the results you seek and that is leading.  Indeed, it is hard, but it can be done. I’m sure you’ve watched a Hollywood movie based on a true story about something someone did that was remarkable. There’s millions of stories like that, they just get drowned out by the news media but they are there nonetheless.  So it’s time we told another one. Let’s get started. Let’s make something happen.