Partly because today we had a praying mantis on the window of our fifth floor office in the Schindler Education Center on UNI's campus. As a biology teacher and naturalist I was instantly enamored.
The other reason is that something has been bugging me. The type of thing that has not necessarily been definable but just out there troubling me. Yesterday Leasha Henriksen and I were able to have a great discussion about the future of education in and the opportunities for change in Iowa. We were able to articulate two great questions that sprung for our talk. Amazingly today we read an article by Steve Denning http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/09/01/the-single-best-idea-for-reforming-k-12-education/ that touched on many of the points we had covered! (Thank you, Steve Denning, for helping me articulate some of my frustration.)
At issue is the "factory model of management" that has become the norm in our schools. This system is not necessarily healthy, effective or efficient. It can also be disheartening to the people within it. Denning suggests that one way to make the system more effective is by inspiring lifelong learning in our schools. Seems simple enough. Why do we need to block the way for this to happen with things like evaluation systems and tighter controls that inhibit creativity? As Denning puts it, lets stop our focus on things and shift our focus to people.
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