In America today, some teachers are challenging the very purpose of education. Instead of keeping academics isolated from the "real world," they want to make a connection between institutions and the lifelong endeavors students will pursue long after they have left school.
Some might say it's about time. Business people say they can't find an adequately educated pool of potential employees. College teachers say entering students don't have the academic and critical thinking skills they need.
Could it be that the educational system, created decades ago, is no longer suited to today's social, educational, and economic climate? Could it be time to reinvent education?
Many teachers think so. Creative, visionary, tough, these teachers are actively involved in educational reform. Some have tried academies, schools-within-schools. Some have tried mentorships. Still others have worked hard at getting the local community involved in the schools, or at building school-based enterprises or cooperative education programs. And some have "hit the wall." They are ready to take reform to the next level, but aren't sure how to make the climb.
For such educators, as well as those who have just begun reinventing their schools, NCRVE offers specific help. NCRVE offers an 800 number to call for suggested resources; an on-line forum, VocServe, where teachers can connect with each other, long distance, for minimal cost; and periodicals (CenterWork and CenterFocus) to anyone who wishes to receive them. As part of the technical assistance program (see the Professional Outreach and Nationwide Technical Support article), Marilyn Raby, NCRVE's new field consultant, goes out to schools where she meets and talks with teachers about their needs. The Development program also offers week-long intensives, such as the recent summer institute, and regional meetings, to members of the Urban Schools Network.
The recent summer institute, Step by Step: Pathways to Connect Vocational and Academic Reform, offered intensive training. Held in Berkeley, California, July 18Ð22, the institute featured expert speakers, but also offered hands-on practice in problem-solving and teamwork.
Before the summer institute, NCRVE staff sent questionnaires to the 19 teams planning to attend and asked what areas were of particular interest. The intent was to create a parallel process to that used by reform-minded teachers: just as teachers focus curriculum and activities around the needs and interests of students, NCRVE's Development group begins with the needs and interests of teachers. This resulted in a complex, lively agenda ranging from how to use writing to teach critical thinking to how to build school-based business enterprises.
The institute featured lectures by experts. But there was also time for teams to work together, to problem-solve, and to reflect on what they had learned, or wanted to learn the following day. Each team was asked to write up cards for each day and then post the cards on a storyboard in a common area. Teams were also encouraged to reflect on plans they developed, to determine if each new plan included the appropriate academic and analytical standards.
In addition, groups of teachers who had come to the institute together were encouraged to practice working as a team, and practice balancing content and process. There were debriefing sessions after important workshops, in which three sets of teams were asked to work together as a triad. Ground rules and guidelines about the process of consensus were provided by NCRVE fellows, who worked as facilitators throughout the institute.
"Teachers are in a process of deep changeÑfundamentally redesigning their roles and student's roles. We provide the kind of teaching they are also providingÑstudent-focused learning opportunitiesÑand it is really time-consuming!" said development coordinator Erika Nielsen-Andrew.
Not only is it time-consuming, but it challenges many assumptions of traditional educational culture. According to Ken Clark, executive director of the North Bay and Coastal Consortium School Leadership Center (SLC), the educational culture for decades has been "about me working with my students in my classroom and deciding what's going to be done." Because of this, it's difficult to get teachers to talk about learning strategies that workÑand more importantly, don't work. Discussing ineffective strategies, according to Clark, "raises the question ... are we founts of knowledge for other people, or are we teachers and learners at the same time?" Using a consensus-based process can help with these issues and with other group dynamics as well.
The SLC, which is part of the California School Leadership Academy, several years ago began a project to build the leadership skills of principals, administrators, and teacher-leaders. Soon, SLC staff realized they needed to reach a broader spectrum of school personnel, so they began working with teams of teachers.
For the past four years the SLC has been teaching teams and teacher-leaders how to use consensus. Many people believe consensus is simply getting everyone to agree, but that is an incomplete definition. More accurately, consensus is about getting everyone to participate in decision-making.
Not all decisions need to be made this way. The bus schedule, or who has lunchroom duty when, might be made more easily by one person. But decisions that involve the purpose or mission of a school, the results expected from students, and conditions needed to achieve those resultsÑthese are decisions which require a high degree of "buy-in" from the faculty and, consequently, are well suited to the consensus process.
Tools of dialogue and consensus building can be helpful, not only for teachers communicating with other educators, but as tools to communicate with and model behavior for students. According to Marilyn Raby, NCRVE's new field consultant, "The future of our country depends on young people learning teamwork and having a sense of community. We already know what the infrastructure for commerce is going to look like in the futureÑbut what goes on within that infrastructure? It appears that the countries which are going to be most successful are those which use the team model.
"It is also going to be what will keep us sane. In a society like this one, that values technology so much, we also need to reach back to earlier social forms, so we can keep ourselves in some kind of equilibrium. We've got to get back to our human roots."
One of the social structures Raby would like to retrieve from the "earlier social forms" is that of young people associating more frequently with adults. In a society where both parents often work long hours, and where extended families and small communities seem to have vanished, teenagers and young adults spend time associating primarily with others their own age. Raby finds mentorships extremely valuable, "particularly for youth growing up in poverty, where they feel all they can do is what they see the adults around them doing. We would like them to have a larger vision of the future."
Marilyn Raby is a warm, soft-spoken woman who projects a sense of having so much knowledge and experience that she doesn't need to raise her voice to make a point. When asked about the value of work-based learning, she laughs. Besides teaching responsibility and other work-related skills, she says school-related jobs mean students "never again ask you why they need to study algebra!" As a field consultant with NCRVE, she goes out to schools, meets with teachers, and talks about what they need. She says sometimes teachers want to discuss how to achieve curriculum integration, or how to create internship opportunities for students. Other times they may want specific guidance about how to access district, local, and federal funds, or how best to involve community businesses in the schools.
Raby has worked with teachers and students for 26 years and has a lot of experience handling challenges. Prior to joining NCRVE, she was Director of Curriculum Services in the Sequoia Union High School District in Redwood City, California. She was also the first director of the Career Academies in California. Two of the Academies in her district were designated as national demonstration sites in dropout prevention through vocational education. One of those sites has been made famous in the movie Dangerous Minds, starring Michelle Pfeiffer. The movie is based on a book by Lou Ann Johnson (with whom Raby has worked closely), My Posse Don't Do Homework. When asked about Dangerous Minds, Raby says, "I hope the movie will help the general public understand why they need to support schools and what a difference good teachers can make."
And what about the teacher whose story forms the basis for the movie? Says Raby, "Lou Ann Johnson wanted to do something life-affirming. And teaching is one of the most life-affirming things anyone can do."